Book Review - And I Darken

And I Darken by Kiersten White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had a love/hate relationship with this book from the beginning.

It's a retelling of the possible life of one of my favorite historical figures, Vlad Tepes III, aka Dracula. However, Vlad is gender swapped to female. Lada. I am very much attached to the actual historic figure, who is male, so while I enjoyed a story about a Wallachian noble who is sent as a child to live with their enemy, the Ottomans, and the struggles of their love for country and the friendships they develop in the foreign land, I did not enjoy Vlad portrayed as the character Lada.

Another struggle I had was the course the book took of bringing the reader through Lada and Radu's childhood up until adolescence. It was too long for me. I didn't care about their young childhood years, and I do feel it took too much page space. However, given the potential for the reader to be unsympathetic to Lada's later actions without the context of her childhood I understand WHY it was done. Taking on a character such as Lada is no mean feat, and I am fully in awe of how Kiersten White pulled it off. The balance she kept between the character's nature as violent, dark, and yet still immensely sympathetic deserves its own accolades.

Points I loved were the interpersonal power struggles between Radu, Lada, and Mehmet - their love for each other is always overshadowed by some form of disdain, fear, or outright hatred; the walk through history White takes the readers through - with my limited knowledge of Mehmet it appears White was as accurate as possible with events; and the journey through a land and era I feel has not been given the literary attention it deserves.

But I'm totally biased with that. :P

While I would be cautious about who I recommend this to, it's more of an in depth than casual read I would argue, I will be continuing the series for the potential events and struggles of all the characters.

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Book Review - Anna Dressed In Blood

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cas is obsessed with hunting ghosts. It's like a family tradition, for one, but there's also the fact his father had been killed by one. When Cas hears about Anna Dressed in Blood, he knows she's the big haul. The one he has to kill.

But she lets him live. Spares his life when she could have torn him into two pieces. Now Cas is on unfamiliar ground, and things are about to get a lot more complicated.

From the beginning this book held my attention. The voice of the main character is distinct, snarky, and a lot a fun to go through the story with. Pieces and hints of later plot events are speckled throughout, and rules of the characters, the world, and the ghosts are set and reaffirmed as the story progresses.

In short: I had a lot of fun reading it.

I wish there had been more to a specific set of characters' interactions and chemistry, and I would have liked the ending twist to have been foreshadowed more. More importantly, however, the events made sense. A few times I wanted to smack characters upside the head, but this had less to do with the soundness and progression of events and more about the fact that they're teenagers.

Although I did have to suspend my belief regarding interactions around the knife later in the book, but the author didn't require too many of those (you know, beside it being about ghosts and such) so I was more than willing to look over it.

Anna herself is both a sympathetic character, and one to be feared. What she does, and how she does it, aren't exactly nice and respectful. While I wish more time had been spent on what exactly was her drive the author succeeded in creating a complex character I was more than willing to root for.

I enjoyed Cas and his mom's relationship and how she dealt with her son going off and frolicking with deadly ghosts as he hunts and destroys them. While perhaps not completely realistic, it was one of those things set from the beginning and reaffirmed enough to be believable.

The ending is emotionally satisfying and leaves plenty open for another book while not necessarily being a cliff hanger.

I will be continuing the series, and will also look for other books by Kendare Blake.

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