**Thank you Amilea Perez for the eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Posted to: Goodreads and The Storygraph

Posted on: 25 October 2024

3.5 (rounded up to 4) out of 5 stars.

Firstly, happy book release week! I totally didn’t mean to do a review this last minute, but I didn’t quite know what I wanted to say, really. In the end, my criteria to rating books left this at an even 3.5 which I rounded up to 4 stars. I’m still kind of sitting between that 3 and 4 star mark, really, but for the sake of Goodreads’ limited options, I will *keep* it rounded up.

Anyways, all of that to say that I had a bit of a love/hate with this book. I tried to keep all my thoughts in order by keeping an ‘info dump’ list that I didn’t quite keep up with- bummer. I do have enough to sort my words out enough though, so let’s get to it.

I usually try to stray from reviews when I’m reading a book if only to not have anything spoiled for me. Regardless, I find myself skimming through them in the end and I couldn’t help but keep note of some of the things other readers saw and mentioned. So I guess I’ll start off with the things I didn’t quite enjoy/things that bugged me when reading:

I can’t quite place my finger on it, but the dialogue felt a little like… awkward at times? Did anybody else catch that? Especially between the family (well obviously, that’s who we followed for over half the book but more on that in a bit), I just felt that it was giving… Disney-channel-family-movie-dialogue. Does that make sense? It wasn’t *bad* so to say, but it did just feel a little unnatural.

I’m gonna shift gears and bring the topic of family with me into the theme of pacing. Perez mentioned this in her instagram story once already, but let me say it here again too- this book is a slow burn. This book is slow paced. It is NOT for the reader who likes action and fast-moving scenes because we literally follow the House of Life for most of the book up until the day of the tournament (this was roughly around the 60% mark because I remember ranting about it to a friend of mine). I had a love/hate with *this* for the fact that- well the book is *called* ‘The Tournament of Heirs’. Why do we only get 40% of actual tournament content? On the flip side, I loved the chance to get to know these characters more though. The slow pacing helps in giving readers a moment to learn about this main cast and get attached to them if only to make the tournament part more stressful to read.

And now to segway this pacing issue into the broader topic of writing style. I didn’t exactly *hate* the way Perez writes, I think for a debut book, it’s wonderful and definitely could grow into something more graceful and lovely. However, I did see the issue a few other readers had in that the content felt repetitive. I get it, I saw it, I read it over and over- it is repetitive, especially in things that the author wants you to remember. It’s a mix of show *and* tell, which I felt didn’t hurt the story *too* much, but it did get a little tedious after a while. I think that with time though, Perez’s writing can most definitely improve into something where the need to repeat facts that she wants the reader to know will slow evolve into another way of keeping info constant without being too in your face about it.

Phew, okay. So you might be thinking, “Well damn girl, if you had all that to say about the book, then why did you round it up to four stars!?” 

Uhm, well.. I’m asking myself the same thing…

What *really* got me hooked onto this book was the strong sibling dynamic that was promised in the early book promo. I love love LOVE books with sibling relationships as somebody who has two older sisters and sometimes wishes that we were all closer together, or that we didn’t fight so much growing up and hold those old grudges, or that no matter what happens in the future, we will *always* be there for each other regardless of how much distance is between us (Elle, if you’re reading this, no you aren’t). So when I met Acalan and Metztli, I knew I would stick with the book. These characters were written with love by Perez, that much is very clear. Where a few other characters felt a little flat or just distant because we didn’t get the chance to know them better due to passing mentions of them or.. other reasons (iykyk), I think the main sibling duo we follow had their chance to shine. And I won’t lie, it felt a little trope-y sometimes, a little too much cliche or simple, but I don’t know… I just couldn’t let go of these characters as easily. And I never hit a point where I was like “this is so annoying, I have to stop reading or I’ll become a hater”. Although there was one thing that I kind of didn’t like…

The romance in this was okay. I didn’t really come into this book with a need to see love flourish, but it was something nice! Acalan’s story had a more insta-love type that usually isn’t my cup of tea. It was sweet, it was nice, it got me annoyed in one scene but I got over it. I think the characters worked well together which made it all the sweeter, but again- I personally don’t like the insta-love too much. Metztli’s story had more of a slow burn, but when it happened- oh boy, it happened. It, again, was a nice side romance story. I think *those* two characters work well together too. Necalli has a lot of my favorite book-romance-lead tropes which meant that I’d love him eventually, but I still feel like his snarky-ness could’ve shown a little more/it wasn’t a switch that made these two fall into one another.

I think the storyline went along well. There’s prophecy talks that’s kept a secret most of the time. I switched between annoyed and intrigued at its constant mention, but it played out well enough in the end. I will say that the ending kind of felt a little anticlimactic to me? I don’t know if I was so excited to see what happens that I accidentally glossed over some key parts or if it genuinely didn’t have that arching blow that it was leading into. I don’t know. What I do know is that the characters, Perez’s potential, and the way this book ended has all snagged me so deeply into waiting for the second book. It’s a fine read! There’s room for growth, but I think it’s a nice debut that mixes bits of Mexican and Aztec culture, and a new fantasy world to make an interesting tale! I think it’s worth a try if you’ve been looking for a new book about gods’ games, sibling bonds, and the desperate need to keep a kingdom and a family safe.