By Kelly Keene

Title: From Blood and Ash

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Star Rating: 2/5

Synopsis: A young girl is “The Maiden” and forced to wear a veil all around some castle where she lives. A few ruling class people are in charge, and of course, abusive. This girl, Poppy, is a teenager who rebels and sneaks out at night. She has a past that left her scared, and orphaned. Her go to guard also helps her train to defend herself with a sword, bow and arrow, and various forms of knives. She has a handmaid friend she only kind of trusts, and a new guard that is mysterious and sexy. There are people who are “ascended” but it’s pretty ambiguous what that means throughout most of the novel. Lot’s of teen angst. Oh also Poppy has some power that allows her to feel other people’s emotions. She can force people to feel emotions too. She sometimes uses these powers, but it’s easy to forget throughout the story that she even has them. 

Sample Quote: “Breathing, heavily, I tried to rein my emotions back in, but I couldn’t. Something in me snapped, broke wide-open, and I couldn’t stop.”

“The gods did not walk in the sun. So neither did the ascend.” 

*Spoiler alert*

My Take: Can you hear my eyes rolling? This book popped up on Goodreads when I went through a recent fantasy kick. It’s a long one at 613 pages, and I believe there is a sequel. This book took me a while to read because I just couldn’t get into it. I wasn’t sure who the intended audience was. Could be YA, but then some of the sex scenes are pretty specific. I felt compelled to skim over whole sections of descriptions, or parts where Poppy was processing her emotions and figuring out how she felt. For someone who is supposed to be some sort of empath, she really struggled to identify her own feelings. And for someone who is supposed to be secretly tough and bad-ass she is randomly helpless at times. The end of this book finally had some action, but it took so long to build to, then felt so rushed that it was difficult to appreciate. Hawke was obviously not a real Royal Guard, and turned out to be some sort of vampire. The vampires and werewolves we expected to appear didn’t show up until the last 15% of the story, and then we didn’t know if we liked them or not. There was way too much ambiguity throughout the entire story. Poppy didn’t know who or what to trust so that the reader didn’t really get a grasp on the conflict or characters. I found myself rooting for Poppy’s demise by the end, and was disappointed when it didn’t happen. I will not be reading the sequel.