Title: The Children and The Blood
Author: Megan Joel Peterson
Date Published: February 6, 2013
Source: ARC
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Rating: ★★★★★
Links:
About the Book:
A forgotten life.
A secret war.
Eight years ago, an exploding gas main killed Ashley’s family and left her with a childhood she can’t remember. Eight years later, the forgotten past is behind her and life on her isolated farm is all she knows.
Until that past comes looking for her.
Until men with superhuman powers hunt her down in the night, determined to take everything she loves away from her again.
Review:
Riveting, suspenseful and action-packed!
The first thing I noticed about this book is its title. It
has a sort of grim feeling to it. I mean, children generally depict innocence
and when you combine that innocence with the connotation of the word ‘blood’,
it doesn’t really paint a pretty picture. To be honest, I expected a horror
story but was pleasantly surprised when the story told something different.
Upon reading the first few chapters of the book, I was
confused because I didn’t really know what to expect. The apt description of
what I felt during the initial stages of reading the book would be ‘lost’.
I was confused just as much as Ashley, Lily and Cole when tragic
events started happening, but I gave it a chance because mysterious
circumstances at the beginning of the book always lead up to an ‘Aha! Moment’
at the latter part. I’m glad I stuck to the story and gave it a chance.
At first, I thought maybe the children in this book were
like those genetically modified people whose parents were the test subjects of
experiments by mad scientists. As I went on though, I finally got to the meaty
part of the story and learned about wizards, cripples and bloods. The
background story is just as fascinating as the one being told about the three
children involved!
What I really liked about this book was that it had no dull
moments. Sure, there were pauses for breathing, but I consider them as those
calm moments before a storm. The storytelling combines just enough pauses and
tension to sustain a very engrossing read.
The characters are also multi-faceted and interesting.
There’s Cole who tried to figure out things on his own and saved two lives in
the process. There’s Ashley, who was forced out of her sheltered life to become
a much tougher person, learning about her powers in the process. And finally,
there’s Lily, a ray of sunshine and maturity at such a young age.
The only thing I really didn’t like about this book is its
ending. It ended with a massive cliffhanger and now I can’t wait to read the
next book in the series. As a reader, I’d say the cliffhanger was such a huge
bummer, but then again, given that the author was able to elicit such a
reaction from me only means that she was successful in luring me into a very
engrossing story, her story.
All in all, I highly recommend this book to readers who
would like to enter a world of wizards so different from those in Harry Potter!
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