Children of Fallen Gods by Carissa Broadbent

2/5 stars

SPOILERS AHEAD

I've been putting this review off for so long, I'm just going to brain dump here. Set your expectations low, because I'm going to word vomit and probably not even re-read to edit because I just need to get this thing over with.

God, I don't know WHY for the life of me I just cannot get in to this series. Objectively, it's everything I should love. I know based on my reading history and the books I give 5 stars that I should love the characters and the idea is fantastic, I just cannot get myself to be invested in it. I literally had the audio book set to 1.75-2x just because I got too far into it to DNF. 

It's just so long and feels like so little actually happens. I know that a lot actually does happen, but none of it really makes sense to me so I just can't get myself excited about it. I knew off the bat that Aefe was going to end up being Reshaye, and yes it was interesting learning about her past and how she became Reshaye, but now we're just supposed to forgive and forget all the shit that she did because she had a hard life and was experimented on to become some all-powerful magical tool? Idk.

And maybe this was because I listened to the audio instead of reading it, but there were so many characters that had similar sounding names and so many different races of humans and magical creatures and timelines going on that I never knew who was who or where we even were in the world or who was fighting who and why. I thought that Ishka was a man from a different part of the world from Aefe for the longest time and was confused about why the whole betrayal situation to some king was such a big deal because I didn't remember that they were like best friends? I genuinely had no idea what was going on or who was who for like 60% of this book. And I do admit that's almost definitely my fault for my lack of attention span, but still, it was tough to get through.

Maybe I'm just not built to read complex fantasy and need to stick to the dumbed down versions. 

Apparently Aefe and Caduan are back to life at the end? They ripped her out of Tisanaah's mind somehow? And Caduan was inside of Max's head? I really, truly have no idea. I have no idea what kind of magic Zeryth was working with that made him basically die. I didn't care about Nura's point of view and how we were supposed to see her side of things to make it some redemption arc, but she was just whiney because this monster didn't like her enough so she manipulated her best friend over and over again instead to try to have some semblance of power and control. All for "her people". Whatever. 

I wanted to like this so bad because it has such good reviews but I just really didn't get it.

Samarin was the only other really likable character and he was barely in this book.

Aside from Max, I just don't find myself caring much about the rest of them. Yeah Tisanaah has a great purpose and wants to do great things, and I didn't dislike her character, I just didn't care. I think that sums the whole thing up for me - I just didn't care.