Children of Virtue and Vengeance
I was so incredibly pumped for this book.
Key word: Was.
If you haven’t heard of Tomi Adeyemi you’ve been living under more than just a rock as she’s been dominating The New York Times Bestsellers List since her debut novel, Children of Blood and Bone was published in 2018.
The sequel to this was released in December of 2019, and I was riding the waves of Tomi’s utter charisma and charm as well as the breathtaking characterization, fantasy, and poignant writing style that the first novel abundantly offered only to be unfortunately let down.
Now, before I get into why I found the sequel so abysmally disappointing, I do want to say that I love Tomi like the nerdy fangirl I truly am. I was fortunate enough to go to her book signing in the middle of December in San Diego, and I was blown away by her.
She was so young! And funny! And talented! And humble! She liked anime and Avatar: The Last Airbender and Harry Potter, and I was smitten. I wanted so badly to be her best friend, and more than that, I wanted to be like her. Successful, intelligent, adored, published.
With all that in mind, the disappointment that I determined Children of Virtue and Vengeance to be was all the more bitter when I remember how inspiring and galvanizing I found Tomi. That being said, I’m still a huge infatuated supporter of Tomi; I’m just now left pondering...what happened?
Maybe I’m the only one who found this book confusing and disenchanting. Maybe everyone else loved it. Maybe I’m being too critical. All of this could be true.
However, I set out to make this blog a candid interpretation of my feelings on the books that I read, exaggeration and hyperbole aside. I wouldn’t be critical of this book if I didn't think it deserved it.
Along the same vein, you don’t have to agree with me. In fact, differing opinions make the world go round, so feel free to shout and snap your laptop closed.
But enough chitter-chatter. Why didn’t I like this book?
It was fucking confusing and shallow. Those are probably my two biggest criticisms.
The first book had so much going for it. All of the main characters were engaging and interesting, the world building was winsome and detailed, the relationships were fraught with myriad feelings and complications, and everything had depth and stakes and emotions.
I personally felt like all of this was missing from book two. The main character, Zélie, was aggravating and irritating in this installment, Amari was ignorant and weak, Tzain was inconsequential, and Inan was disillusioned and whiny.
Everything that I had loved about these characters from book one seemed to have been replaced with these other characteristics that frankly made reading this book a chore. I truly didn’t like any of them.
It’s like getting to the fourth season of a show you previously loved and realizing that they’re doing everything wrong now because they’ve run out of ideas for the episodes. All the characters read as worse replicas of their previous personas, and that made getting through the book really challenging.
In addition, I felt despairingly lost about 90% of the time. I’ve made this critique before of other novels, but I'll say it again: It’s okay to make your readers interpret what’s going on in your novel and not spell everything out for them like they’re first-graders. It’s welcome to have to squirm a little. It’s deliciously challenging when there’s a learning curve in the beginning.
It’s infuriating when that learning “curve” is still happening ¾’s through the book.
The plot was as organized as the grocery store check-out line when Covid first Started. That being-not at all. Tomi seemed to be making shit up left and right.
Oh, Zélie can fly using her power? Why not! Oh, there is actually this whole underground sanctuary that an entire army can't seem to find? Believable. Oh, now there are people called cênters and light is pouring from Zélie’s mouth and eyes and that’s not concerning-why would it be? And oh! Let’s just bring people back from the dead! Hahahah!
It was exasperating.
Tomi just seemed to pull things out of thin air when the situation called for it, and that doesn’t make for a pleasurable reading experience-it makes for a diluted one. Also, just like my criticism in the Chain of Gold Review, Tomi throws so many new characters at you and expects you to care about what happens to them.
Why the hell would I care about a character you literally just introduced me to five seconds ago and that I know nothing about other than he has big ears? Who gives a shit.
When said character dies, I didn’t shed a single tear. That segment was well written, don’t get me wrong, but it lacked emotion and depth because I had met him fifty pages ago.
And you know why I didn’t put this character’s name? Because I don’t even remember it and I finished the book yesterday. That’s a problem. That’s a really big problem.
In the end, this book was too much and not enough simultaneously. I almost feel like Tomi had all the right ideas and a large starry plan for what was going to happen, but for some reason the writing was expedited and rushed and that made the book lackluster and dull overall.
The lack of description for the things that mattered made me disconnected from the characters and more irritated with their behavior than empathetic.
The plot, while exciting, was riddled with so many holes and boggling epiphanies that it lacked consistency, logic, and structure.
Now, like any good YA book sequel, this one ended on a cliff-hanger. As is customary for this novel in particular, the cliff-hanger was more perplexing than it was anticipatory.
Instead of making me wonder Omg, what’s gonna happen next? It made me think what the fuck just happend and is it over now?
After this novel I truly am on the fence about getting the next one. Part of me wants to see this through for Tomi and all the time I’ve already put into it, but another part of me wants to pitch myself off a balcony at the thought of reading about Zélie and Amari again.
Only time will tell, my friends.
Recommendation: Hit up Tomi. That girl is a gift sent from the gods. I love her. I love her stanning of BTS and the fact that we share a hometown and that she’s truly making a strike on the YA world with her inclusion of diverse characters and African mythology and fostering discussions on race and representation. That being said, this novel was a dud. Read the first one and then watch all the interviews of Tomi you can find and save yourself the disappointment.
Here are some bonus pics of Tomi and then Tomi, her friend wearing antlers, and me!!!!
Score: 4/10
