Blood and Salt Review

Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett (346 pages)
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Date Read: 17 December 2016

Synopsis:

Romeo and Juliet meets Children of the Corn in this one-of-a-kind romantic horror.

“When you fall in love, you will carve out your heart and throw it into the deepest ocean. You will be all in—blood and salt.”

These are the last words Ash Larkin hears before her mother returns to the spiritual commune she escaped long ago. But when Ash follows her to Quivira, Kansas, something sinister and ancient waits among the rustling cornstalks of this village lost to time.

Ash is plagued by memories of her ancestor, Katia, which harken back to the town’s history of unrequited love and murder, alchemy and immortality. Charming traditions soon give way to a string of gruesome deaths, and Ash feels drawn to Dane, a forbidden boy with secrets of his own.

As the community prepares for a ceremony five hundred years in the making, Ash must fight not only to save her mother, but herself—and discover the truth about Quivira before it’s too late. Before she’s all in—blood and salt

My Review:

Once again, I am giving the old spoiler alert right at the beginning, so you have been warned.

I am actually giving this book a 3.5 stars instead of a three star review.

Okay, so now onto the actual review. I found this book very interesting. Though I was expecting something more like a thriller and/or horror novel, this was more like a non-scary cult novel. But it was not as creepy as I had hoped. I wanted to be terrified, but instead I was left without much of an emotional response at all.

This book reminded me, in a lot of ways, of that movie Children of the Corn. I don't really know why because the plot is not the same, but I think because it was set in the middle of a corn field that ate people with a cult in the middle of it. (Side note: I am not a fan of that movie, but my friends made me watch it with them. I found the movie quite boring, to be honest.)

Ash was an okay main character. I mean, she was strong, in a way, but she wasn't particularly striking in many ways. She, like many other young adult heroines, falls in love with the wrong guy, then gets betrayed by him, but unlike some of those other heroines, she doesn't really do much about it. Yes, she gets angry, but it almost feels like she is about to forgive him immediately. That didn't particularly make sense to me because if she was really pissed at him, I doubt she would forgive him that quickly.

Rhys was kinda annoying, to me. Yes, he is the twin brother so he is going to feel protective of his sister, but he refused to listen to anyone but himself. There is also the fact that, even though he sees all this magic stuff around him, he doesn't believe in it. Plus, to top it all off, he thinks his sister and his mother are crazy just because he thinks differently. I was not a fan of any of this. He is discounting the women in his family because he does not know how to deal with what he cannot see.

I wasn't a fan of Dane either, to be honest. He didn't help Ash as much as he said he was and when she would come to him for help, he would brush it off as if it didn't matter. He was kind of an ass.

The whole Katia plot was a bit weak. I saw it coming from a mile away, but I did enjoy the bits with Marie (her daughter). Whenever Marie was in a scene, even though she hardly talked, the scene, to me, got a whole lot more interesting. I loved seeing Ash try to figure out what the hell was going on with her.

I am not sure where I stand with the whole "light and dark" blood with Ash and Rhys. It seems a bit strange, but I think I can be okay with it if it is explained more in the next book.

Also, the magic as a whole has not been fully fleshed out and I hope to see more of it in the next book. I feel like there was a lot briefly touched on, but not fully explained.

All in all, I am looking forward to the next book, if only to see what the hell is going to happen next. The characters, while not my favorite, have the potential to grow into who they are and be developed more. I did not hate this book, but going with that, it wasn't my favorite book either. I am giving it the extra half-star because it has the potential to become something really cool in the next book.

Speaking of: The Last Harvest comes out 7 February 2017.