Bloodguard by Cecy Robson
on October 22, 2024
Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / General, Fiction / Fantasy / Romance, Fiction / Romance / Fantasy
Pages: 512
Format: Hardcover
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One hundred years. Tens of thousands of gladiators. And today, only one will rise…
Everything in the Kingdom of Arrow is a lie.
Leith of Grey thought coming to this new land and volunteering to fight in the gladiator arena—vicious, bloodthirsty tournaments where only the strongest survive—would earn him enough gold to save his dying sister. He thought there was nothing left to lose.
He was wrong—and they took everything. His hope. His freedom. His very humanity.
All Leith has left is his battle-scarred body, fueled by rage and hardened from years of fighting for the right to live another day.
Then Leith meets Maeve, an elven royal who is everything he despises. Everything he should hate. Until the alluring princess offers him the one thing he needs most: a chance to win the coveted title of Bloodguard—and his freedom.
But in a kingdom built on secrets and lies, hope doesn’t come cheap.
Nor will his ultimate revenge…
I really like gladiator stories, so I was really drawn in by the premise of Bloodguard. However, most of the book isn’t actually gladiator fights, it’s political drama. Normally, I get excited when a fantasy book veers into a more political storyline. It didn’t work for me with this book though because the initial premise of the story was the only pillar holding the book up. The world building, themes and characters are all so shallow. This world was clearly created hastily, and the politics are a copy and paste of every other YA fantasy to have come out in the last decade. The characters are also walking, talking nobodies, with the same personalities and motivations of every other YA protagonist you’ve read before.
But by far the worst part of this book for me was the way that the author’s writing style and humor clashed with the book’s tense and serious moments. There are admittedly some really exciting battle scenes in this book, with high stakes and intense gore. The problem is that these scenes are all narrated by our insufferable main characters who speak like it’s 2012 and they work at Buzzfeed. A character will be in the middle of being brutally mutilated and stop to say “Wow, you really put the dick in dictator” or “Received 20 lashes and found out my whole family is dead. Yup, this is definitely winning shittiest day award.” It’s so incongruent to the tone and themes of the story. Maybe if the quips were funny I could ignore how out of place they are, but they didn’t even make me laugh. Normally I just cringed.
It’s worth noting that the author’s first language isn’t English. That being said, none of my issues were with grammar or diction, they were with creative choices.
This book does have some highlights, I won’t deny that. The end battle had me on the edge of my seat. But I just couldn’t get past the narrative voice. Decent premise weighed down by crummy writing. I had to rate this one at 3.5 stars.
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