#tzain

Only on page 172 and I already love everyone!

Zélie is such a reletable main character, I can emphatize with her and understand her anger which is rare for an MC.

Tzain is even more lovable, he lives not only for his father and sister but to protect everyone, even a total stranger of a noble whose family killed his mom.

I can relate to Amari the most. She is from a privileged position but she doesn’t want to put other people down or to hurt someone who is less fortunate. She makes honest mistakes but always tries to correct them.

okay so to start off. i have to say i didn’t enjoy this book as much as children of blood and bone. In book 1 i fell in love with the world building and the character arcs and the plot between Orïsh’s corrupt monarchy and the maji/divïners. I thoroughly enjoyed the way the created a corrupt government that oppresses those they believe to be less than them, and then created such an iconic protagonist to destroy such an atrocious system. i loved how they made it more than a simple yes or no, they made it conflicting and difficult and painful at parts, because the oppression and government wasn’t going to be such a simple fix. it was amazing and beautifully well done.

now onto book 2 tho... 

I feel like you started to see the character’s cracking under the pressure they were forced to live under, which was nice and realistic. think about it: these are mere children tasked with fighting an entire war- of course they’re going to go feral and a little insane. i feel like the character arcs made a complete 180 in this book and showed how even your favorite heroes have the potential for evil. All that being said, i feel like this book didn’t serve the purpose it probably should have, because it really just ended up going in a circle with no side gaining an edge and a lot more people losing their lives. 

it was a lot heavier than the first book and i felt like each character took away life like it was meaningless, which was shocking to see, and soft characters like amari became evil while characters like zelie broke under the pressure of it all. i guess mostly i just didn’t like how much pain they went through and how the unnecessary death and carnage didn’t mean anything to them anymore because i feel like it should, though i suppose thats my opinion only.

another thing is all the random specifics that were so important in this book but unheard of in book 1, like Nehanda becoming such an important and deadly enemy when in book 1 she was nothing more than a pestering queen who caring about nothing beside stable etiquette. also, the magic that the maji performed here was unheard of in the other books- their combined magic literally seemed as powerful as the gods, which was suspicious to me and seemed like a quick fix to not make any plot holes, though i could be wrong. 

also, i hate how the characters are so unsteady in their beliefs. obviously, inan is the first one that comes to mind, since he would literally have a chapter talking about how the maji should die and he would kill a couple dozen people for thAt cause, and then a couple chapters later he would switch all his loyalties and menality to the other side and he’s sabotage his oWn people. (psa: i despise this man and everything he is holy crAp)

it wasn’t only him tho, because amari did the same thing when she trusted inana and then regretted it and then trusted the maji and then went back to trusting inan. once he betrayed her, she made a whole 360 and started putting her efforts into destroying inan no matter the cost, and zelie did somewhat of the opposite, starting with wanting to (rightfully) destroy inan. to wanting to trust him to hating him to wanting to believe his lies- and meanwhile, people on both sides are dying because of their unsteadiness.

i know that their shakiness lies in the fact that they are children who- despite being as tough as they are- can still be naive and hopeful and want to change, but from all the characters these changes entailed a lot of unnecessary death that could have been avoided if they didn’t let their emotions guide them.