Children of Virtue and Vengeance, Tomi Adeyemi | Book Review

This was a highly anticipated book for me, having adored the first book in the series, Children of Blood and Bone. This fantasy series focuses around Maji and their different abilities as they fight for power and freedom in their kingdom.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance, Tomi Adeyemi

Themes: Fantasy, Young Adult, Magic

Reading Format: Hardback

3 STARS

Thank you to Macmillan Children’s Books for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

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I would say I went into Children of Virtue and Vengeance with very high expectations, which is always a bit dangerous. Zélie and Amari were the fierce characters we met in book one and are the two leading women for book 2 as well. To say these two have a rocky relationship would be an understatement. Zélie is the Elder of the Reaper clan and Amari is desperately trying to have her voice heard amongst the Maji that hate her and her family so much.

The conflict in this book was all over the place, it at times became hard to follow. The characters seemed to change their minds so quickly, and especially who they trusted. It was hard to keep up with whose side I was meant to be on and I felt quite lost for most of the book. It’s a real shame because the premise of this sequel was strong, I think perhaps there were too many central characters to manage. I often felt characters weren’t being true to the way they had been written and often said/did things that didn’t make sense for them.

As for the setting of Children of Virtue and Vengeance though, it all sounded very magical and intriguing. I enjoyed the visuals in my head based on how the locations were described. The plot was certainly not short of action either and the pacing was very fast, which made this quite a quick read. I think perhaps because of this fast pacing, it made various points within the story harder to follow and I wanted to jump back to the action.

Overall, I wish I liked this book more. I think more than anything the characters frustrated me. It was a big back and forth of trust and then hatred and it was difficult to keep up. But, it ended on a cliffhanger so I’m assuming we will be hearing about a third book in this series at some point in the future!