Jurjen
The first 80 or so pages did very little for me, so I was thinking this read was going to be a bit of a wash. Fortunately, the story picked up and I started enjoying it a fair amount. I think JL Odom’s dialogue is one of her strongest qualities, and there was quite a lot of depth and nuance in conversations between characters, and the character dynamics more broadly.
The story is largely about ethnic strife and prejudice (made clear by the title, “By Blood” referring to an expletive of the dominant ethnic group, “By Salt" referring to one by the oppressed one). Despite this being so core to the story, we get no real sense of the identity of any of the peoples involved in the story apart from some surface level cultural practices/traditions. To really elevate the story, this needs to be much more fleshed out. The pacing also felt a bit odd and the ending was a bit of a dud.
A pretty neat self-published story that won the 2024 SPFBO, glad to have read it. Not sure if I’m picking up the sequel though, we’ll see.
The first 80 or so pages did very little for me, so I was thinking this read was going to be a bit of a wash. Fortunately, the story picked up and I started enjoying it a fair amount. I think JL Odom’s dialogue is one of her strongest qualities, and there was quite a lot of depth and nuance in conversations between characters, and the character dynamics more broadly.
The story is largely about ethnic strife and prejudice (made clear by the title, “By Blood” referring to an expletive of the dominant ethnic group, “By Salt" referring to one by the oppressed one). Despite this being so core to the story, we get no real sense of the identity of any of the peoples involved in the story apart from some surface level cultural practices/traditions. To really elevate the story, this needs to be much more fleshed out. The pacing also felt a bit odd and the ending was a bit of a dud.
A pretty neat self-published story that won the 2024 SPFBO, glad to have read it. Not sure if I’m picking up the sequel though, we’ll see.
