ARC Book Review: Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi

📝 What is Children of Anguish and Anarchy about?:

When Zélie seized the royal palace, she thought her battles had ended, but soon finds herself captured and trafficked across the seas by warriors with iron skulls. Her true captor, King Baldyr, has ravaged civilizations to harness her strength, pushing Zélie, Amari, and Tzain to seek new allies. As Baldyr closes in and catastrophe looms over Orïsha, Zélie must confront her final enemy to save her people from annihilation.

📚 Genre: YA Fantasy

🎧 Format: ARC E-Book

💞 Feels: DNF at 56% complete

At 40% of the way in I was not interested in any of the characters, but I was trying to push through. Trying to complete the book since it was the ending of a trilogy.

I’m realizing this year that I really dislike multiple POVs. I used to think Sarah J. Maas had just ruined me for other dystopian fantasy books with more than 2 POVs; especially after her last book. But now I’ve read The Atlas Six, which has 7 POVs, and those characters had different motivations, skillsets and ways of expressing themselves that had me fully invested.

The characters in Children of Anguish and Anarchy all feel very one note. I’m not getting a sense of any emotions from them. Zélie is the de-facto leader and seems to be the only one with any personality, too. The other characters pale in comparison to her. And at times when I’m reading other perspectives I have to turn back to the beginning of the chapter to see which character I’m reading. They all speak and think the same. Only if they’re talking about another character (i.e. mentioning another character’s name) do I know they’re not the character they’re talking about. It’s not enjoyable to read and impossible to get absorbed into the story.

There is a new mystery to figure out in this book, but I haven’t cared about it really. The characters aren’t making a big deal about it, so why should I!?

I’m going to say we could’ve got to the “quest” a lot faster. Just a lot of fluff chapters with exposition that didn’t move the story forward and no action. At 56% (when I’ve given up on these characters) things are starting to happen. I feel like so much of my time has been wasted. I’ll come back to this book one day, when I’m okay with the slower pace of the adventure.

I have questions…

Should this book have been a duology? Were there signs of this new big bad in either of the previous books? Would I have enjoyed this book more if I’d re-read the first two books?

Basically I’m learning lessons here about how I like to enjoy book series. I need to read books that are part of series in quick succession or at least closely enough together that I remember the details. Which means I need to wait for the series to be complete before I try to tackle it. ‘Cause now my experiences with the Crescent City and this Orïsha series have not been great.

You’ll like this book, if…

You’ll like this book, if you enjoy books with a slow pace and are a completionist; because the first two books in the series do deserve your attention.

✅ Spinoff novella nomination: N/A 

What are you reading? Let me know in the comments.

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