A Steeping of Blood by Hafsah Faizal
Overall Rating - 4.5
Emotional Impact Score - 4.5
Thought-Provoking Score - 3.5
Character Score - 4.5
Plot Score - 4
Worldbuilding Score - 4
Prose Score - 3.5
Arthie’s own parents had been dead for ten years and she still thought of them.
It’s about time I got to the sequel of one my favorite YA books I read in 2025. It’s been just under a year so it took a little bit to get back into the world but I am sure glad I did.
From what I remember, this book definitely has more emotional punches than the first one did. The ending… emotional devastation. I’ve seen people upset about the circumstances but I think it lends itself nicely overall. There’s not a lot of deep thoughts required but that’s not a negative. The characters themselves aren’t very deep but, again, they don’t need to be. The character archetypes are some of my favorites. At it’s core, it’s still another heist story, so the story is more focused on the heist than the characterization. Overall, the plot did what it needed to do. The worldbuilding itself feels very inspired. It doesn’t feel directly analagous to anything but it feels like it pulls from real-world situations over real-world places. The prose is similiar to the thought provokingness - it does what it’s set out to do and it does it well. It’s not overly flowery but it does what it needs to do.
She could say nothing else. They were supposed to see this through together. It was supposed to be an eternity of him and her, dashing and deadly.