Isabella - SnooRegrets's Reviews > BloodLust

** spoiler alert ** This was an okay read, I guess. More of a 2.5 stars, when I think about it tbh.

It’s just ... for a first book in a series it just wasn’t enough. There was no real world building, which normally happens a lot in the first book in fantasy stories, since they introduce you to a new world.
Considering the fact, that that the culture of the illiri is kinda lost, it makes a little sense and hints at further revelations throughout the next books. The thing is, if you don’t do world building, you have to build something else. Like characters and / or relationships. And that doesn’t happen nearly enough for me.

It just felt like a lot of missed opportunities for me. You have a whole bunch of men, that were partly raised by purebred illiri, if I remember rightly and NO ONE bothers to teach the new illiri, former slave, that knows basically nothing, just a little bit of her culture?
I get that training comes first, because mission and blah, but seriously, what the hell?
I know, that the LT doesn’t really want that and she is just coming to terms with her nature, but she has to a least be curious. Cyno for example would have been the best bet here, and to develop a little more than a fuck buddy relationship, because that’s all there is to it, even though we get hints he wants more.

That leads to the next part I didn’t enjoy - I didn’t feel any chemistry at all. The LT, let’s be honest Fell in love Siana, the human girl Sal morphed into to get information and then struggled through the whole book with the female she really is, it was just too much for me. And with Cyno there is no connection but a forced bloodthirst fucking, that has to happen because of their frenzy. Throw in a confusing third kiss/bite and the chaos is perfect. Yeah, I didn’t feel it.

What I really, really liked were the platonic relationships, especially in RH those are often neglected.

For characterization I can’t say too much good things either. Our Heroine is absolutely torn between her desire to fit in and be normal and the fact she just isn’t, the whole thing is enhanced by LTs ego and stupidity. She is neither here nor there and her development was meager IMO, there would have been room for way more growth.

Plot wise there isn’t much to say, since it was rather obvious and predictable, but okay, just a little mediocre.

What really bothered me above all else, was how the discrimination trope is handled. How all illiri are so much better, smarter and simply way cooler than those puny humans and almost all humans are evil and nasty and kill worthy. The illiri look down on them, but still are controlled by forces, to me unknown? I don’t really get why they don’t fight more, when they are so much better.

So all in all it was an okay read, but was also disappointing on a few levels, and I don’t know if it managed to grip me enough to even continue. Motivation just after finishing is rather low, although I am curious about further development.