Review of From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

This cover is beautiful and I love it :)

From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

4.82 out of 5 Stars

 

Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God

PEOPLE

Oh my God

Okay no more of that.

So I love this author, I love her books, I love her characters, I lover her humor. I freaking ******* loved this book. Dare I say it, I think it surpasses all her other books that I love.

What is?
From Blood and Ash is a new adult fantasy in a world where there was a huge war that overthrew the vampires (I'm blanking on the term right now and I loaned my copy to a friend... #fail). There are now the Ascenders that rule over these walled-in cities in the kingdom and they protect the people from the craven, which are like these vampiric zombies. Poppy is our main girl in the story and she is known as the "Maiden." As the Maiden, she's some secluded, sequestered, all-white robes wearing version of a Handmaiden on steroids. Essentially, she's a candidate for Ascension and is meant to marry a prince (I believe) after she has Ascended.

But oh-ho-ho, things get tricky because Poppy starts to question things around her. Plus there are some murders. And then there's Hawke (oh will we talk about Hawke). And historical secrets. And it all just leads up to so much wonderfulness as a reader that I absolutely adored this book.

SPOILERS BELOW (SERIOUSLY- I am going to spoil things. Please do not read further if you have not yet read the book.)

PLOT:
I'm intrigued. I went into this book pretty blind because that is literally how much I trust JLA to write a good book, so as things progressed, I was just strapped in and let the story take me where it went. Looking back on it, the plot is an oddly even amount of fantasy and romance. There were times when I was hooked into the larger political structure and dangers lurking about, but then there were also times when I was fully invested in PoppyxHawke (which, do we have a ship name????).

There's a lot that happens. If I were to break down the plot into "acts", I think there's five? ---Editing me interrupting real quick. Lol I didn't realize this book was 634 pages, which is double the page length of her other books like Obsidian or Half-Blood. I read this as an ebook in one sitting hahaha, whoops.--- It just seemed like the story was never ending. And for the most part I mean that in a good way because I loved the characters and the dialogue and the suspense of not understanding this weird position Poppy was in.

I don't think I can pull out a single "best moment" either because there were so many amazing moments. There's the first time we see Poppy take away someone's pain, the whole dignity in death stuff was really touching, there's the time Hawke was like, "dude, how'd you sneak out of the room," the poetic yet dramatic justice the Duke gets (which, let's be real, we all knew was Hawke's doing), Poppy's freak out, and the last scene. Scratch that, the last LINE: "We go home to marry, my Princess." Dead. I'm dead. I'll talk more about that moment later when it comes to Cas, but holy alien babies (JLA fans- I had to use this phrase, ya know?) what a way to end the book.

What's going to happen next??!?!!!?!? I want to see Cas's parents. I want to know what the new game plan is about saving his brother, because it would kill me to see Cas have to give up Poppy as was the original plan. I don't think he will. I have a gut feeling on this one that they're "mates" or whatever the "mate" equivalent will be in this series. Although, I'm also intrigued by Kieran's comment about everything ending in "another tragedy." Was Cas involved with the other Maiden? WAIT. What if it was his brother that was involved with the other Maiden and somehow that all led to his brother's capture? I think I need to reread this and write up a crackpot theory post about where the series will go.

The big question: do I want to see a wedding? Ummmm... not like how it is set up now. I'm not thrilled with the dynamic between Cas and Poppy at the very end of the book. Cas is too controlling for my comfort level. And maybe he's freaked out about something that we as readers don't know about yet, and when Poppy finds out she'll confront him and get him to back off a bit. Or maybe she'll just confront him in general and straight up say, "dude, you can't decree our wedding." I do like the ship, but we're not seeing enough right now for me to be comfortable with a wedding. I'm 96% sure Poppy still thinks she'll get traded away in some political game with the Ascenders for Cas to save his brother. A marriage doesn't make sense with the information and development we have right now. Maybe it could once things are cleared up and their voices in the relationship is even, but I don't think we are there yet as of the end of the book. This was this biggest issue I had with the book, sadly.

Also, Dear JLA, I love you. Truly, I do. I adore your books and your writing, but.... I couldn't help but notice that there's no book two spot on Goodreads yet for this series. And it hurts my heart just a little bit. There's just a teeny tiny gaping hole of fear in my chest that for some reason we won't get another book. Which, logically, doesn't really make sense because there is a "series" list for the first book, which would mean there are going to be others.


CHARACTERS:
Poppy: I feel like Poppy is the victim of a cult upbringing. Actually, she really is because she is centered around some artificial religion meant to perpetuate a literal feeding farm for the Ascenders. The more we learned about Poppy, the more my heart broke for her because it was just so much for anyone to be raised in. Her role was insane and I was so happy for her the moment she decided she wasn't going to put up with being some weird trophy religious figure anymore. I loved that she knew how to defend herself. I loved that she questioned her upbringing. And I really loved that she didn't automatically swallow what Hawke was telling her at the end. It wouldn't  have made sense for her to suddenly switch out of the stories she had been raised to believe as truths. She still has a lot of mental scarring and new fears and doubts, all of which make sense, but I am so hopeful for her development to see where she goes for the rest of the series.

Hawke: Or should I say Cas? Muahaha I love that Hawke ended up being the prince. Overplayed trope? *shrugs* Maybe. I don't really care though. Honestly, I though JLA did a really great job balancing us at the edge of wondering if he is the prince, if he's close to the prince, or if he's just a rebel. I'm curious though if that was just me. Because while I was reading, I could tell that something was up with his character, but it took me a good amount of time to pick up that Hawke was Casteel. Sort of like I said earlier though, his character is the one that gives me pause. It's why I can't give this book a full five stars: I'm worried about how he develops, especially in regard to his relationship with Poppy. He's too controlling at the moment, and not even in a hey-Poppy-play-along-there's-a-reason-here-it-is kind of way, but like an everyone-is-in-the-dark-and-he's-deciding-they're-getting-married kind of way. Personally, I'm not comfortable with that. BUT, I don't think we have the full facts or development because there was nothing else in the book to suggest Cas by nature would just override Poppy's voice like that. If anything, I feel like it was the opposite because he would be the one to encourage her to find her own voice and make her own independent decisions -- to be her own person. So while I don't like the direction we see him take at the end of the book, I don't think that's the full story and I'm really sincerely hoping he changes so that he's not domineering over Poppy.

Vikter: It is a truth universally acknowledged that there are rarely any good living parents in YA books. So of course our good father-figure had to be killed. Her parents were already dead, which is bad enough, but we couldn't even have a father-figure for a whole book. I liked Vikter. I liked having that parent role model in Poppy's life and it will be interesting to see how the grief affects her. But I miss him. It was such a tragic moment and I just wanted to acknowledge him for a moment. He will go down as one of the good YA dads. **And I know this is a NA book, not YA, but still.**

Tawny: Maybe I'm the only person wondering this, but what's going to happen to Tawny???? Thank goodness Cas insisted she stay behind at the castle because otherwise she'd be dead! That would have been horrible! And lowkey a part of me hopes that Poppy at some point has that revelation because Cas really did her a solid there. Yes, there's a lot of death. And yes, there is some proportional amount of blame that he carries (that's a whole different equation I don't want to get into). But to me, this was a big moment when he chose to protect her best friend, knowing that Tawny was planning on Ascending and knowing everything that Ascension entailed. Where will Tawny go in the future though? Will she meet back up with Poppy? Will she accept the truth the way Poppy did? Will she not Ascend? There's a lot of questions spinning in my head, that's all.

The creep: I don't remember his name. I don't particularly care. But you know the guy? The one that made your skin crawl? Yeah, I'm glad he and the Duke are dead.

WRITING/WORLD:
I'm not going to lie, I just dove into this book headfirst and didn't realize that it was a full-on fantasy. That being said, JLA writes a lot of great urban fantasy, so for a solid chapter or two I was so confused as to where the story took place. And then I realized what was going on and it all made so much more sense. While we didn't get to see the full new fantastical world that she has created, I am optimistic about how it will be revealed to us. Even just with the historical background of the war between the Atlantians and the Ascenders, I think she was able to really cleverly convey the disparity between what the people believe and what is true. And from there, build a foundation of understanding the politics of the world from the eyes of the people in it. I think she'll hit this one out of the park once we get a full view of Atlantia and the capital for the Ascenders. Oh! And I would love a map. :)

A big plus. Because it was a complete fantasy novel, there were no contemporary pop culture references. I don't necessarily mind those in JLA books, but they can throw off things like humor if I can't follow what the joke is. It was so nice to see JLA's wit come out in a way that was completely even and original to the story. I really enjoyed how there was still banter, and she was able to do it without the aid of a pop culture reference. A small minus. I kept thinking of Atlantis every time I saw the word Atlantia. And the book is about vampires, not mermaids.

I don't think I could give this a full 5 star review because of some questions and concerns I have about the characters' traits and relationship dynamics. And they're concerns that are more than just fleeting, so we'll have to wait and see what happens. But, I'm hopeful it will all balance itself out and in terms of everything else... amazing. I am really really looking forward to the next book.

Thanks for reading!!!!!
(Also, I 100% had way to much caffeine while I was writing this, but I'm just going to leave it :) as is.)