Review: Wildblood by Lauren Blackwood

Wildblood by Lauren Blackwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This book started out really strong, the premise of the Wildbloods and blood science is really interesting as is the sentient jungle, however I'm left with alot of unanswered questions at the end. The concept of the Wildbloods is really unique but we never get any explanation as to how they came to be or why they exist. You are just supposed to accept them and their abilities and therefore accept their poor treatment in the touring company. We never really come to understand where each of the characters come from other than they were kidnapped to become part of the touring company and to work for the abusive boss. I love a unique magic system or ability, but I need a little bit of an explanation as to how it works, and we don't get any explanation or tie to the local folklore. I believe the entities encountered in the jungle are tied to Jamaican folklore, but we don't get much background on this either. I don't mind doing my own research on myth and lore, but I feel like the author could have given us a bit more to go on here. I kept hoping that it would come up as the tour proceeded through the jungle, but those details never came to light.

The world building was great. The descriptions of the jungle and the entities that the tour group encounter are well done. After about the first half of the book, the focus of the plot shifts to the strange insta-love romance between Thorn and Victoria, and her trauma filled relationship with Dean. This created what felt like a love triangle, and I feel that the social commentary and character development aspect of the book was overshadowed by the romance tropes. I will say that I enjoyed the ending, and how the author brought things full circle.

This is a pretty brutal book, with lots of trigger warnings. The story is filled with symbolism and trauma. I believe this is YA, so the descriptions of events aren't overly graphic, but the situations and topics lean a bit more on the mature side. There is SA, physical and mental abuse, violence, blood magic, blood in general, slavery, death, and probably some others. The author is trying to address some pretty complex topics within a SFF setting. While I think the execution suffered bit by tackling too many tropes, it was an interesting story overall.

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