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A review by cherrybluedreams
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout
1.0
*pulling her hair from her head frantically*
Okay, I have never written a review for a book before, so i am going to try my best and make my points clear.
This book evolved from being an utter disappointment to be the worst book i’ve read so far, and considering that it was also the first book that i read by the author and that it is said to be her best one, i think that speaks volumes about how i am not eager to try and pick another book from her.
I truly wish i could give this book 5 stars like the rest of the people who have fall head over heels over it. I picked up this one just because i wanted to know for myself if the book was worth all the hype and all the praise that is constantly getting. Spoiler, it wasn’t.
But before getting into the i-want-to-smack-myself-for-finish-this-book part, i briefly wanna talk about the things that i liked.
1. Poppy. I wasn’t expecting to like Poppy so much, but i did. I was really invested in her character and i felt quite attached to her. She’s naive and a little bit childish at times, but she’s also clever and curious, and i felt deeply connected with the way she sees everything and her longing to enjoy her own life and make her own choices. You deserve better girl.
2. Vikter. He was like a father to Poppy and he deeply cared for her, he was protective of her (but not in the wrong way) and he taught our main character how to defend herself, and the best of all and our point in common... he didn’t like Hawke either. Unfortunately, the best ones always leave first.
3. Yep. That’s all.
Now, the rant begins...
-First of all, I found the writing as jarring and irritating as nails slowly clawing at a blackboard. Seriously, it was at the very least insufferable, but i managed to get past it once i was halfway through the story, ‘cause i decided to simply stop thinking about it (I must clarify i’m not a writer, and english is not my first language, so i don’t know if i am allowed to complain or if it is just a me-thing, but i had so many issues with it). The way the author worded the phrases and the constant (bordering on the absurd) repetition of phrases like “a knot lodged in my throat” or my favorite “a wave of goosebumps break out/ pimpled my skin” (or some shit along those lines) had me wanting to reach inside my brain and brush off the words from my memory (me being overdramatic but who cares). How many times Poppy’s breath had caught? or how many times damn-Hawke’s-dimple had made an appearance? seriously, someone tell me please because i grew bored of counting. Anyway, i’m pretty sure i could have missed all of it if the book had had something that allowed me to simply enjoy the rest of it, but yet again, it wasn’t the case for me.
-The world-building is practically non-existing and i feel like it was all over the place with info-dumps here and there (How is it possible that i’ve finished the book and i still don’t fucking understand what the role of the Maiden is and why?) Also, i would make a point to say that the plot-twists were given themselves up even before they had to be actually revealed (and am not the kind of person who guess all the twists and turns of a book), and the only shock i felt was that Hawke/ Casteel could’ve been so gross and repulsive the entire damn time.
-Now, the top of my disappointment, the horrendous “romance” between Poppy and (fucking-creepy) Hawke. I was so so so excited to get into the romance thinking this could be my cup of tea, ignorant of what was to come, that i really was utterly mad the closer I got to the end of the book and I had to keep putting up with Hawke. Everyone (and i mean EVERYONE) was raving about this piece of shit and how freaking amazing he was as a character. That leaves me wondering if i’ve read the same book as the others or if maybe i’ve missed something. Mmmmm, apparently not, so, where’s my problem? Okay, at first Hawke is introduced to us in the (*clears her throat*) second chapter of this book (which shocked me a little bit ‘cause this is a quite long book and i thought it was going to be a good slow-burn romance); normally i don’t have any problem with the main love interest being introduced so early in the book as long as they leave a good impression in me, but my problem was that I didn’t like his acts towards Poppy from the very beginning; but okay, its fine, its fine, it’s too early to complain Carmen, i was reassuring myself, so i loosened my i-don’t-like-this-man leash a bit to be less skeptical and actually go on with the vibe. So after this chapter we don’t see Hawke until later on, when he gets duty-bound to Poppy. *Sighs*.
There are so many things that Poppy and Hawke's relationship is wrong with that I don't even know where to start. What I can highlight is the fact that our male protagonist, who only wants to use Poppy for his own benefit, could have done just the things he did to her without actually having to have sex with her. Actually his goal and the outcome of his agenda would not have changed at all if this had not happened (wasn't it enough to earn her trust by pretending to be her friend?), which makes me even angrier, since I feel that sex is used as something for her to feel psychologically and ultimately emotionally attached to him, and as a weapon for the dude to have power over her.
One of my other complaints is that he is a fucking, manipulative liar, and i get why it has to be that way for the story to have some excitement, i truly do! But that doesn’t excuse him of the things he does to gain Poppy’s trust and then left her feeling hurt and betrayed. It’s repulsive how he made her believe throughout the entire thing that she was making choices of her own when the reality was that this guy didn’t even takes consideration and respect when she says NO. I felt painfully disturbed with the blurred lines with sex-consent in this book, because of his shitty manipulative nature towards a girl who barely knows anything about life and who is taking for granted that what this dude does is the right thing (can you hear me screaming at the top of my lungs?). It truly felt like a man taking advantage of a nineteen-year-old girl who had been sheltered and non-educated about sex her entire life, and due to the fact that her sexual life has been nearly (if not completely) non-existing, it’s very probably that she herself wasn’t aware of the toxicity radiating from every pore of his fucking damn body.
I also really didn’t like how he groped her all the time, feeling in his right to do so even when they barely knew each other. It was just like....*gags*
I get that everyone has a line as to what they can tolerate in a book or not, so i guess i don't need to say my tolerance line was crossed by far. This trash made me feel uncomfortable and diminished as a woman and seriously Hawke takes the cake as the most fucking repulsive male character i’ve had the (not)pleasure to read about.
Okay, I have never written a review for a book before, so i am going to try my best and make my points clear.
This book evolved from being an utter disappointment to be the worst book i’ve read so far, and considering that it was also the first book that i read by the author and that it is said to be her best one, i think that speaks volumes about how i am not eager to try and pick another book from her.
I truly wish i could give this book 5 stars like the rest of the people who have fall head over heels over it. I picked up this one just because i wanted to know for myself if the book was worth all the hype and all the praise that is constantly getting. Spoiler, it wasn’t.
But before getting into the i-want-to-smack-myself-for-finish-this-book part, i briefly wanna talk about the things that i liked.
1. Poppy. I wasn’t expecting to like Poppy so much, but i did. I was really invested in her character and i felt quite attached to her. She’s naive and a little bit childish at times, but she’s also clever and curious, and i felt deeply connected with the way she sees everything and her longing to enjoy her own life and make her own choices. You deserve better girl.
2. Vikter. He was like a father to Poppy and he deeply cared for her, he was protective of her (but not in the wrong way) and he taught our main character how to defend herself, and the best of all and our point in common... he didn’t like Hawke either. Unfortunately, the best ones always leave first.
3. Yep. That’s all.
Now, the rant begins...
-First of all, I found the writing as jarring and irritating as nails slowly clawing at a blackboard. Seriously, it was at the very least insufferable, but i managed to get past it once i was halfway through the story, ‘cause i decided to simply stop thinking about it (I must clarify i’m not a writer, and english is not my first language, so i don’t know if i am allowed to complain or if it is just a me-thing, but i had so many issues with it). The way the author worded the phrases and the constant (bordering on the absurd) repetition of phrases like “a knot lodged in my throat” or my favorite “a wave of goosebumps break out/ pimpled my skin” (or some shit along those lines) had me wanting to reach inside my brain and brush off the words from my memory (me being overdramatic but who cares). How many times Poppy’s breath had caught? or how many times damn-Hawke’s-dimple had made an appearance? seriously, someone tell me please because i grew bored of counting. Anyway, i’m pretty sure i could have missed all of it if the book had had something that allowed me to simply enjoy the rest of it, but yet again, it wasn’t the case for me.
-The world-building is practically non-existing and i feel like it was all over the place with info-dumps here and there (How is it possible that i’ve finished the book and i still don’t fucking understand what the role of the Maiden is and why?) Also, i would make a point to say that the plot-twists were given themselves up even before they had to be actually revealed (and am not the kind of person who guess all the twists and turns of a book), and the only shock i felt was that Hawke/ Casteel could’ve been so gross and repulsive the entire damn time.
-Now, the top of my disappointment, the horrendous “romance” between Poppy and (fucking-creepy) Hawke. I was so so so excited to get into the romance thinking this could be my cup of tea, ignorant of what was to come, that i really was utterly mad the closer I got to the end of the book and I had to keep putting up with Hawke. Everyone (and i mean EVERYONE) was raving about this piece of shit and how freaking amazing he was as a character. That leaves me wondering if i’ve read the same book as the others or if maybe i’ve missed something. Mmmmm, apparently not, so, where’s my problem? Okay, at first Hawke is introduced to us in the (*clears her throat*) second chapter of this book (which shocked me a little bit ‘cause this is a quite long book and i thought it was going to be a good slow-burn romance); normally i don’t have any problem with the main love interest being introduced so early in the book as long as they leave a good impression in me, but my problem was that I didn’t like his acts towards Poppy from the very beginning; but okay, its fine, its fine, it’s too early to complain Carmen, i was reassuring myself, so i loosened my i-don’t-like-this-man leash a bit to be less skeptical and actually go on with the vibe. So after this chapter we don’t see Hawke until later on, when he gets duty-bound to Poppy. *Sighs*.
There are so many things that Poppy and Hawke's relationship is wrong with that I don't even know where to start. What I can highlight is the fact that our male protagonist, who only wants to use Poppy for his own benefit, could have done just the things he did to her without actually having to have sex with her. Actually his goal and the outcome of his agenda would not have changed at all if this had not happened (wasn't it enough to earn her trust by pretending to be her friend?), which makes me even angrier, since I feel that sex is used as something for her to feel psychologically and ultimately emotionally attached to him, and as a weapon for the dude to have power over her.
One of my other complaints is that he is a fucking, manipulative liar, and i get why it has to be that way for the story to have some excitement, i truly do! But that doesn’t excuse him of the things he does to gain Poppy’s trust and then left her feeling hurt and betrayed. It’s repulsive how he made her believe throughout the entire thing that she was making choices of her own when the reality was that this guy didn’t even takes consideration and respect when she says NO. I felt painfully disturbed with the blurred lines with sex-consent in this book, because of his shitty manipulative nature towards a girl who barely knows anything about life and who is taking for granted that what this dude does is the right thing (can you hear me screaming at the top of my lungs?). It truly felt like a man taking advantage of a nineteen-year-old girl who had been sheltered and non-educated about sex her entire life, and due to the fact that her sexual life has been nearly (if not completely) non-existing, it’s very probably that she herself wasn’t aware of the toxicity radiating from every pore of his fucking damn body.
I also really didn’t like how he groped her all the time, feeling in his right to do so even when they barely knew each other. It was just like....*gags*
I get that everyone has a line as to what they can tolerate in a book or not, so i guess i don't need to say my tolerance line was crossed by far. This trash made me feel uncomfortable and diminished as a woman and seriously Hawke takes the cake as the most fucking repulsive male character i’ve had the (not)pleasure to read about.