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Empire of Dust (Blood of Gods and Royalsl #2) Book Review

Empire of Dust is the second book in the Blood of Gods and Royals series. The series continues the story of Alexander and his journey in becoming the new ruler for the kingdom as he starts to make bigger decisions. Hephaestion is rejected by Alex because he kills the wrong person, a vital part of his original plan. He then finds a secret prophecy that he must conceal from Katerina as they are sent on a dangerous mission. Jacob, Kat's ex-lover, tries to discard his emotions and rid of the blood magics. Lastly, Princess Zofia tries to find the Spirit Eaters in order to change her fate so that she can be with the one she loves. 

I reviewed the first book, and although I didn't like it that much, the world intrigued me and I decided to try and read the second book. In my opinion, I thought that this book was much worse because it made me really frustrated as I read it. 

The perspective changes between the seven characters were more annoying than in the first book. It was hard for me to really get interested in any of the seven characters because the perspective kept on changing and there were so many things happening it was hard to remember. If a chapter really did intrigue me and made me want to know what happened next, it would change perspective and leave me hanging, making me really frustrated. Even though I wanted to read more so that I could get to what happened, the next chapters would be really boring because I was only focused on getting to the next chapter just so I could see what would happen to one character. Some of the perspectives weren't necessary either in my opinion, and even if it was included, I would've preferred a much more continuous idea of what was happening. In general, it was confusing, frustrating, and hard to follow.

In addition, the characters were flat and uninteresting. I feel like most of the characters lacked more depth and they all seemed a bit like the stereotypical main and side characters. Heph is gullible and a bit stupid and he doesn't seem to develop at all throughout the story. Alex is like the almost perfect leader. The characters are just not that interesting and because there are so many it's hard to see any growth in them. 

Overall, I think the book was really boring and frustrating due to the perspective changes and characters. I might just try to read the book again slower, but I don't really think that it will be any more intriguing than the first time I read it. 

Comments

  1. Zhaoxin SunApril 22, 2021 at 9:41 AM

    Great review! I think these criticisms really summarize some very common issues in books. The characters aren't well developed and it becomes very tedious to read. I could definitely relate to what you were saying even though I haven't read this book.

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  2. Jade LiApril 23, 2021 at 7:00 PM

    Hm, interesting review - as Jojo mentioned above, you do call attention to many of the issues common in the YA genre. In particular, I think that multiple-person-perspective has the potential to be quite engaging if handled properly, which unfortunately hasn't always been the case as you point out; as I am currently working with such a perspective myself, this post served as an indirect reminder for me to keep track of and organize the structure of my writing. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nyla Kyles April 24, 2021 at 10:43 AM

    This is a really good review, I never usually see people writing a book review honestly stating how they feel about the book and why they didn't necessarily like it. I've never read this series and it doesn't sound like the type of book I would read so this honest review is very refreshing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Emily DMay 1, 2021 at 5:46 PM

    Unfortunate--I've been lucky enough to read books with good perspective switches. If not done right, they can be jarring and break up the flow of a good story--which looks like is what happened here.

    ReplyDelete

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