(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
This was quite an interesting book to read. I was intrigued by the start of the book and I thought it was pretty cool how the beings were animals in the first scene, though I’m still not completely sure I understood what was going on at the start.
The characters in the book were, for the most part, well-written and well-rounded. I wasn’t so sure about the aliens, though. The scenes intermixed with the situations happening on Earth came across really well, but I did get a bit confused at times. There was quite a bit of switching between POVs and sometimes, the scene changed without any warning.
The two different worlds were fairly easy to follow, even though there was constant switching between the plots. I did really like the idea behind the Sphinx and the different gods, though I was still somewhat confused by the end of the book.
The idea of being judged is one that’s prevalent in a lot of different religions. I thought it was interesting how it was handled in this book. I felt the author did a really good job of showing how the beliefs of people changed depending on the passing of time and other factors.
I like the idea of reincarnation and I would have liked to see more of it in this book than was shown.
Benben and Bulbul were fairly interesting characters, but by the end of the book, I wasn’t really sure what to make of them. They seemed much more villainous than how I’d first perceived them and they weren’t really ‘balanced’.
The science and magic mixed really well in this book, though I would have liked a bit more explanation as to how certain things were possible. I liked how this book ended, but I would have liked to know more. In some ways, I think this book was ended at the closing of one chapter in the universe – and that there’s more of the story that could be explored.
I would be interested in reading more books by this author in the future. This was an interesting, entertaining read in a world that I’d like to see more of.
Ink of Blood 