Cawpile rated May 2022:

Character - 6
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 7
Plot - 5
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 6

Rating: 5.86 / 3 stars

On the reread this seriously suffers from second book energy, the whole thing felt like we were crawling towards the next book, rather than a whole story in its own right. Please don't let book 3 be like that.

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Full review: https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/2020/07/16/the-damned-by-renee-ahdieh-the-beautiful-2-review/

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for the review copy of this book, it has not affected my honest review.

Trigger Warnings: blood and murder (vampires y’all), gaslighting and memory fuckery, the consent issues inherent in vampires glamouring their victims.

I honestly love Renee Ahdieh’s writing style. I just love it. In the first 60 pages alone I marked at least ten lines as potential quotes because every line is beautiful and I wanted to remember all of them. I thought it was a little weird that Bastien’s chapters were in first person while the rest of the characters were in third person, but Bastien’s chapters did give me some of my favourite quotes so I’m not complaining too much. I found this book to be a little more simple than The Beautiful, which was much more flowery language. I didn’t mind that though, as I was engaged with the plot and this didn’t have nearly as much ‘second book syndrome’ as I was worried about! In places I was a little confused about the nonchalant way that information was shown – at one point I had to go back to my The Beautiful summary because I thought a plot twist was something I was already meant to know, it was delivered so casually.

I loved Bastien in the first book, but in The Damned? He might be the only fictional man worth respecting. I won’t go into too much detail, because I don’t want to spoil anything, but considering the time setting, Bastien is excellent. He insists on so much personal agency for Celine, giving her a choice in everything that they do and I just love to see it. I love historical fiction, but not when The Man decides everything. Bastien wouldn’t do that to her. Even the love triangle wasn’t that bad – I usually hate them – because the logic behind it tracked and it was clearly based in the society of the time.

In my review of The Beautiful I said that I wanted more vampire stuff in The Damned, and I definitely got that. Seeing a character go through the newborn vampire process was really fun, and definitely had the same energy of the first book. I loved the fae aspects that were added in and how the vampire and fae history was meshed in, different from a lot of vampire books I’ve read. I didn’t realise this was a four part series (because I’m an idiot) and when I got to the 75% mark, I suddenly had the sense of impending doom that this series wasn’t going to be wrapped up in this book. As it is, I can’t wait for the rest of the series, as the end of The Damned kicked things off hard.

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 8
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 7
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8

Rating: 7.57 / 4 stars

turns out pippa and arjun are way more interesting than celine and bastien lmao

though i do like that the entire premise of this book was SAVE ODETTE and literally no fucker remembered she exists after the first few chaps

this book ruins my gay lil life every time and i love it
CAWPILE rated May 2022:

Character - 10
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 9
Plot - 10
Intrigue - 10
Logic - 9
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 9.71 / 5 stars

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Full review available on my blog on October 15th: https://inkandplasma.com/2020/09/21/surrender-your-sons/

tw: conversion therapy, suicide and self harm, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, psychological torture, parental abuse, kidnapping, non-explicit sex between teenagers, coercive control - relationship presented as consensual, violence, gore, discussion of hate crimes, hate crime leading to disability, death.

Thanks to Flux for the eARC of this book, it has not affected my honest review.

This book is definitely going to stick with me. It's an intense, heavy story, but one that I read in a few hours because I couldn't put it down for a single second. Despite the fact that, by its very nature, this book is heavily focused on queer trauma and pain, it didn't feel like trauma porn at all. Instead it felt like a relevant and honest telling of the realities for some queer kids - despite how lots of people like to think that that's all in the past. I was sucked into this book immediately and I swear I *blinked* and it was four hours later and I was finished with it. I've ended up writing my review right away, because I'm just full of raw emotion after that beautiful ending. And despite the fact that it is very heavy, it definitely has a hopeful ending. It's not that everything is perfect, and that's no surprise considering the kind of trauma all of the kids go through, but instead that there's a life past what they suffered. They'll survive and they'll move on, and I know I'm going to hold hope in my heart for all of them for a long time.

I love Connor. I love, love, love him. He's a mess, yeah, but he's a teenage boy going through actual hell. I'd be suspicious if he wasn't a mess. He's funny and loyal, and dedicated to those he cares about. It makes him extremely likeable, along with a cast of characters that I absolutely adored (though not you, Ario, dickhead). I also really liked the antagonists of this book. Well. 'Liked'. They're horrible people, doing horrible things, but the way their motivations unfold is fascinating to read and makes some *really* interesting points about lifelong trauma. The pacing is absolutely perfect, and I found myself paging through this faster than even I thought I could read. I think I'll definitely reread this one in a few months, because I'm sure there's much more to see when I'm not utterly gripped by the fear of what was going to happen next.

I really liked that Surrender Your Sons addressed the idea that coming out can be a fix-all solution. I think that that's a super important thing for queer teenagers to see. Coming out *is* a really brave thing to do, but when that's the only thing that queer teens see, I worry that they get the message that they're cowardly for staying in the closet. That's not true and sometimes staying in the closet for your own safety is the bravest thing you can do. It doesn't mean things won't be better later, or that you don't deserve to be part of the queer community. At the end of the day it's your decision to come out or not, and 'queer pride' will be waiting when you're ready. I think a lot of the messages in Surrender Your Sons will be so important for teens to see. I'm 23 and I still feel like it taught me things, I kind of wish I'd read a book like this when I was young.

Character - 9
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 9
Plot - 10
Intrigue - 10
Logic - 9
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 9.43 / 5 stars

Character - 9
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 9
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 10
Logic - 9
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 9.43 / 5 stars

Character - 9
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 8
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 7

Rating: 7.71 / 4 stars

why did this take me 92 days to finish

Character - 6
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 8
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 6

Rating: 6.29 / 3 stars

Character - 7
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 6
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 7

Rating: 6.14 / 3 stars.

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 7
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 8
Enjoyment - 8

Rating: 7.86 / 4 stars

Character - 9
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 9
Plot - 8
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 8.86 / 4 stars