Introduction

Welcome back, all. This week there’s another e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Booklist Delivers…delivered! I saw a preview of this book thanks to their newsletter and I’m truly very glad I did. This book was enormously fun and I shotgunned the entire thing within a twelve hour span. Here’s the synopsis from the publisher:

Thirty years ago, a young woman was murdered, a family was lynched, and New Orleans saw the greatest magical massacre in its history. In the days that followed, a throne was stolen from a queen.

On the anniversary of these brutal events, Clement and Cristina Trudeau—the sixteen-year-old twin heirs to the powerful, magical, dethroned family—are mourning their father and caring for their sick mother. Until, by chance, they discover their mother isn’t sick—she’s cursed. Cursed by someone on the very magic council their family used to rule. Someone who will come for them next.

Macmillan Publishers

This was a fascinating book. I deeply enjoyed the magic system that seems tailor-made to a city like New Orleans. I was also constantly rooting for Cris and Clem, although their actions throughout the book were sometimes extraordinarily frustrating in only the way that teenagers can be. Let’s get into it more below.

The Details

There is a lot going on in this book, for good and for ill. I was invested from the early pages in what the story would bring and, while it wouldn’t be fair to say I was disappointed, I was surprised by the cadence of the story overall. I’m titling this section ‘The Details’ in lieu of Good Stuff or Bad Stuff because it’s not necessarily accurate to fully describe this book in one way or another on that front.

For starters, that magic system: it was really interesting! I enjoyed it a lot because it was an obvious commentary on the racial history of America and New Orleans in particular, used effectively for the most part. Gen, short for Generational, magic is the focus of this book and clearly comes from a deep knowledge of New Orleans’ Voodoo/Voudou traditions. Cris and Clem come from a powerful Gen family – their knowledge of their family’s history impacts them in different ways throughout the story. Their reactions to learning more about their family’s history and heritage guide their actions and develop their relationships with their relatives in interesting and engaging ways. One of the antagonists, Valentina, is another powerful heir to Gen magic as well. Each Gen magic users’ family ties impact their understanding and usage of magic – that’s a really cool way to tell that part of the story. Other magic types exist in the story as well, although they aren’t the focus of Cris and Clem’s story and are discussed only in relation to how other characters use them on the periphery of the twins’ point of view. This isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but would be interesting to explore in future installations in the series.

In addition to the magic system, the political intrigue and murder mystery were fascinating. I’m a sucker for a good murder mystery and this one kept me guessing the whole way through. The story is primarily told through Cris and Clem’s perspectives with occasional guest spots from other characters at times when it makes the most impact. While this has the ability to be messy, it’s used to great effect here. The chapter titles are named for the character we follow as well, so it’s not too difficult to follow. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I will say it’s tremendously fun and sets up a sequel very well.

The somewhat not-as-great stuff, though… The writing overall is tough to get into. The characters are extremely 16. It’s to be expected somewhat as this is a YA book, but it was a little grating at times to read the intense, melodramatic feelings of Cris, Clem, and the other characters. The writing style also relies heavily on description, which at times feels a bit like getting a firehose of text to the face. This occasionally makes text tough to parse. I had to re-read sections a few times to fully understand what was being said and how folks were feeling. Other reviewers on different sites have noted that the beginning is slow and I agree. That said, the latter half of the book picks up extremely quickly and had me on the edge of my seat.

I have to include some content warnings here as well. Similar to my review for Bad Cree, I’ll stick them between some GIFs so that you can choose whether to engage with them or not.

Content warnings include:

• Toxic friendship
• Panic attacks/disorders
• Gore
• Death of parent
• Racism
• Murder
• Homophobia
• Grief
• Violence
• Toxic relationship
• Death
• Sexual content
• Gun violence
• Terminal illness
• Abandonment
• Bullying
• Infertility
• Drug use
• Religious bigotry
• Sexual violence
• Car accident
• Sexism
• Alcohol
• Cursing
• Forced institutionalization
• Infidelity
• Vomit

Yes, it’s a lot. Thankfully Storygraph makes it easy to tag all of these, so this list was easy to assemble. Second GIF:

This content warning list is much longer than last time, but I wanted to make sure I had all potential triggers covered. This book definitely has a lot of them, so please take care if you decide to engage! I will mention here too that this book is more explicit in places than I’d be comfortable with recommending right away to patrons, but a thorough reference interview should help parse whether or not a patron will be comfortable reading this story.

In Summary

This review is a bit longer than I’d normally write, but I think adding nuance to my thoughts was important. I hope it makes sense – please leave a comment if you have questions or want clarification. With the good and the bad, I’m placing this book solidly in the recommended category.

Blood Debts is written by Terry J. Benton-Walker. It’s published by Tor Teen, a division of Tor Publishing Group, part of Macmillan Publishers. You can find it on the publisher’s site, linked here. As always, gichi miigwech for reading!