I honestly think that Zélie and Amari had a stronger relationship than any of the relationships there and even a more real power-couple potential than any of them both with any of the males in the book. I am a bit disappointed Tomi Adeyemi couldn’t actually make this romance happen. You re And instead of reflecting on the horror of her actions, all she thinks about is how Zélie could be a casualty as well (because she never returned from the village). But after a brief moment, she convinces herself that Zélie's death isn't her fault.

In 'Children Of Virtue And Vengeance,' Magic Has Returned. Now What?". NPR.org . Retrieved 2021-08-21. Roën was legit THE ONLY voice of reason in this book! Honestly, even Mama Agba was such a disappointment. She saw everything that went wrong and didn’t do anything against it?! WTF?! Oh gosh, I loved Roën so much for giving Zélie a piece of his mind! And he was totally right: At first she goaded everyone into war and then she suddenly didn’t want to be a part of it anymore?! I think Roën was the only reason I read this book until the end, because he was the only sane and reasonable character among a flood of stupid and stubborn warmongers. I really wish we would have gotten so much more of him because he seemed to be the only character that was worth my reading time. Be careful,” Tzain warns as the tremor in my hand makes drops of oil spill over the jar’s rim. After three weeks of bartering to get enough to soak Baba’s casket, the rippling liquid feels more precious than gold. Its sharp smell burns my nostrils as I pour the last of it onto our burial torch. Tears stream down Tzain’s face when he strikes the flint. With no time to waste, I prepare the words of the ìbùkún—a special blessing a Reaper must pass to the dead.

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Basically in regards to just about all of the characters in this book, it’s a big ole’ ESH from me. Definitely better than the first one! I was pretty sceptical going in as there were a few things in book 1 I didn’t like. Upon seeing her brother stabbed, Amari kills her own father, and as he dies, she vows to become a better ruler.

Every single character was so. so. annoying. By the end of the first book, I was an ENORMOUS Amari stan. I mean I was willing to die for her. This book just completely undid her wonderful character development and everything we love about Amari!! I cried, but not because of the emotional scenes, but because of how heartbroken I was that the author was doing this to her. It’s been really cool because it’s with Disney/Fox and Lucas Films. It’s been three years and even though the team has shifted and grown, just to have so many people at the top of their game so passionate and excited and enthusiastic about bringing my world [to the screen], it’s ridiculous. I made that world up in my head, in my room, super sweaty, my hair looked like crazy, I was in my pajamas. I’m like, this is going to be that? It’s really wild. When everything blows up in this book, guess who gets an existential crisis? All of them characters.

She got it. Macmillan offered her a seven-figure book advance, one of the largest ever for a debut writer in her genre. Her brief experience in the corporate world helped arm her during the negotiation phase of her book and, later, when optioning the movie rights. “Being in environments that were purely capitalist gave me a lot more perspective going into publishing,” she says. “If you’re not thinking of yourself as a business, you’re always going to be a worker. True gains come from being a businessperson. They come from creating your own institutions, empires, stories, and franchises.” Meanwhile, Zélie wakes up from the dreamscape, immediately telling Amari that Inan is alive, and vowing to kill him. Tzain, Zélie, and Amari, unsure of what to do, decide to free the maji trapped in a nearby fort, but are stopped by Roën. He explains that the Iyika have hired him to fetch them, and he brings them to their camp. When they finally meet the Iyika, Zélie learns that Mama Agba is the founder of the group, and that they have built a sanctuary called Ile Ijosin. Mama Agba leads the group to the sanctuary, where they meet the elders of the Maji Clans. The elder of the Eranko Clan, a Tamer named Na’imah, has received a message from one of their spies in Lagos, Raifa, about Inan’s proposed rations, but Zélie angrily insists that Inan is a liar and will do nothing to help the people of Orïsha. Amari attempts to defend her brother, but is told off by Ramaya, the Èmí Clan elder, who says she is unwelcome. I’m absolutely heartbroken about this book. After a year of anxiously waiting for this, I’m left feeling disappointed and empty after reading it. They stare at each other, and it’s as if we all disappear. Unspoken words pass between their eyes. Roën’s shoulders slump when he rises to his feet. “Me too.”

I said it after reading the first book and I’ll say it again: Their love story came out of nowhere and it’s still irritating af. *lol* Amari clearly was in love with Binta and no one can persuade me otherwise. I find it weird that she would fall for Zane like that and that he’d become her safe haven in such a short time. Also their love ended as abruptly as it started, which only causes me to be even more irritated by their relationship. At first she is everything for him and the moment she does something horrible and stupid he drops her like a hot potato because that is EXACTYLY what we do with the people we love! We can turn our feelings on and off like a light switch, don’t you know?! It must have been true love! Oh jeez, my sarcasm is showing today. I just can’t with this book! I can’t! Amari and Zélie not trusting one another and allowing jealousy, anger and resentment to boil up and ruin their relationship is ridiculous after everything they went through together. If that original, unnamed manuscript was, as she calls it, her “MFA in publishing,” consider Blood and Boneher dissertation: “For that first book, I was working from a place of desperation. I wanted any agent and any deal,” she says. With Blood and Bone, desperation turned into intention. “Once I gave myself permission, I realized I didn’t want a bunch of people to say ‘yes.’ I wanted the right yes.”Amari is suddenly the worst character of this series (and no, I won't take any arguments about this). She goes from the headstrong princess who's determined to right her family's wrongs to a culturally insensitive brat who believes she's entitled to the throne!!! One of the most popular subs on Reddit is called “Am I The Asshole?” Users recount a situation and ask the community if they are the asshole in it. The possible responses are:

Something else that made the reading unpleasant: the unrealistic relationships. The romance in this book seemed a bit off and it felt lukewarm. Also, their convictions and motivations drastically changed whenever the author needed to push the plot forward. Truly, this sequel can rival the character internal inconsistencies in the last season of Game of Thrones.

You read that right. All throughout Children of Blood and Bone and even at the beginning of this sequel, Amari is built up to be this really admirable heroine with a heart of gold. Despite her upbringing as a noble, she is able to sympathize with the maji (thanks to the maji handmaiden whom she befriends) and defies her father by stealing the scroll that can restore magic. As we eat up the chapters of Children of Blood and Bone, we witness her grow an actual spine and a remarkable fierceness. By the end of the first book, we do want this girl as the next ruler of Orïsha. All I can say to those two is: WTF?! I mean what happened to their amazing friendship?!!! Did I miss a memo? How did we get from respect, mutual understanding and trust to the sentence above?! I have no idea what I was reading but it definitely wasn’t the kind of friendship I signed up for. I hate what became of those two and I think if Zélie would have just listened to Amari and trusted her they could have found a way to peace. But nope, Zélie decided to be a b*tch and treated Amari like shit. I mean she didn’t even defend her against Ramaya and the things Ramaya said... if someone would say something like that to my friend I’d give them hell for it! And what did Zélie do? Nothing! She let the maji treat Amari like dirt and didn’t care. You know what makes me even more angry is the fact that they all treated Amari so badly and it was so, SO WRONG! And in the end after Amari really steps out of line and does something totally extreme and horrible it’s like: Oh, we were all right and it wasn’t our fault, it was Amari’s because she was wrong from the beginning. Never mind Amari tried to prevent the war from ever happening for about 3 quarters of the book. Never mind that Zélie was a total b*tch and sent so many of her own people to death and actually wanted to abandon them near the ending. Zélie is our precious heroine and she can do nothing wrong. URGH!