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A review by ellelainey
Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker
2.0
** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley
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Blood Debts (Blood Debts, 01) by Terry J. Benton-Walker
★★☆☆☆
416 Pages
DNF'd at 14%
Unfortunately, this one just didn't work for me. I gave it until 14%, then I had to give up. It would have been a complete disservice to me, the book and the author to keep reading when I knew I wasn't enjoying it.
In a way, I'm sad, because I thought the story had merit, but the execution was the problem.
NOTE: due to the formatting issues not translating into the ARC Netgalley gave me – the images, family trees etc appearing as random lines and words on the page – I bought this copy. That means that any editing and grammar errors I found – which were a few – were in the final version, so I had to take that into account in my rating as well.
For me, I just didn't like any of the characters.
Clem was extremely negative, had fallen out with his twin sister, and kept an easy-going social life with boys in and out of his bed. He takes things too seriously and too much to heart, yet is also one of the most non-serious MC's since I read Red, White and Royal Blue.
Cris comes across as petty, socially needy and yet distances herself for some perceived guilt that I can already tell will end up not being her fault at all. There's a long-winded explanation of how she exchanged a childish tit-for-tat bullying escapade with Valentina in school, as justification for their rivalry, which not only backfired but resulted in online bullying and literally in-person bullying. While I somewhat understand Clem's problems – he's got anxiety (so we're repeatedly told) and his mother is dying and he feels inadequate), I just don't get Cris. She's constantly guilt-ridden and defensive about everything from her boyfriend to her hatred of magic.
Then there's Valentina, who is the most narcissistic female of any cliché there is in literature. She's a stuck-up, snobbish b*tch who wants everything just so that she can say she has it. She doesn't care about anything but herself – but, it's okay, because she's got this pity-party backstory about how her parents don't love her enough, so I suppose that's meant to redeem her? Nah. Not for me.
When I stopped, there were 3 POV's – Cris and Clem, the twins, both had 1st person, present tense POV, while the third POV was for Cris's ex-bestie Valentina, who had 3rd person, past POV. There's nothing I hate more than switching POV and tenses in a book, and this one really bugged me. While I could understand why Valentina had her own POV, I also felt like it was for a completely different story. The two events had NO bearing on each other.
I'll admit, I skimmed to see if there were any more POV's and skim-read a few scenes when something caught my interest. Now, I saw that Valentina used magic to cause a road traffic accident and there was NO response in her POV that I could find – I skimmed the next 5 chapters, to see when it would switch to her POV, to see her reaction and it never came. That really disappointed me. That could have been a huge wake-up call for her, a way to bring the once-besties back together, to work together. But it seemed to be done for no real reason, unless I just missed that part.
Honestly, I felt that way about a few of the plot points. Clem and Cris were always bickering – often about nothing – just to show that they were 'enemies', which I presume is the set up to the fact they've both been keeping secrets and will eventually have to work together and that by doing so, they'll rekindle their relationship. TBH, I just wasn't interested. Their arguments just felt petty, like two kids who had grown sick of spending time around each other and needed to grow up.
Overall, while I found the main plot interesting – this family who has been done wrong by the entire town and magical community, with dark secrets, dead family members and a woman who is actively being cursed to die young – it just didn't engage me. It's going to annoy me, not knowing what will happen later, but it's just not worth continuing when every character is melodramatic and rubs me up the wrong way.
It's a real shame, because the book had huge potential. There are some good bones here, between the plot and the themes – appropriation, white-washing history, inter-generational trauma, entitlement, justice, morality, interracial relationship – but it seems to forget those themes and only use them as a backdrop to a family drama that just lacks the punch and power it could have had.