⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25/5

The Last Bloodcarver is a vicious Vietnam-inspired YA fantasy that hooked me from the first page.

The Last Bloodcarver was a delightful treat! I loved the lush world-building, intriguing characters, and intricate magic system, with a beautiful pace and lovely prose. However, the story was predictable. I guessed the murderer and plot events quickly. Despite this, it was still so much fun!

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

Okay wow, I LOVED THIS.

The Last Bloodcarver gave me more steampunk mystery vibes than fantasy, and that's because the medical magic system built felt so realistic. Le's background in health and human biology really comes through in the sections where Nhika uses her heartsoothing abilities, and I love the way this book presents both magic and science as two parts of a whole when it comes to things we don't fully understand.

What stood out to me the most is the diasporic struggle that Nhika's story communicates with the reader. She has this incredible ability passed down to her through her family, but has used it selfishly to survive instead of how it was intended. This idea of legacy is further developed by a biracial character who I can't go into without spoiling a part of the book, but I deeply appreciated how this book tackled the subject of colonization, identity, and the search for belonging (especially if your people have been subjected to the violence of colonization).

This is a solid debut, and after that wild ending (AGGGHHHH I NEED BOOK 2 NOW!!), I am eager to read whatever Vanessa Le writes in the future!

Why haven’t I hear more about this book? It’s a hit!

Short Synopsis:
Nhika is a bloodcarver. She has the gift and magic to change human biology and anatomy with just one touch. She is seen as a monster with a dangerous power. But when a wealthy family purchases her power to heal she gets involved trying to solve a murder.

My Thoughts:
I was fully engrossed in this novel. It was dark, but filled with magic, science, found family and romance. The worldbuilding was excellent and I loved a good slow burn romance. Nhika was such a strong, female MC.

If you’re a fan of Kylie Lee Baker books, than you need this one in your life.

I did the audio for this one and loved the narration. The ending was excellent and I can’t wait to see where book two takes us!

What You’ll Find in this Book:
🐺 Blend of science and magic
🐺 Found Family
🐺 Enemies to lovers romance
🐺 Dark YA fantasy
🐺 Murder Mystery

5 stars

This is a YA fantasy, but it reads like a mystery most of the time. It kept me reading on and wanting to see what happens. A few of the things I predicted, but I loved the diverse and interesting world. I really loved Nhika and her yearning to overcome everything. I was NOT prepared for that end and certainly have feelings about it. It seems the next book will have my least favorite trope, but I’m still going to have to pick it up to see how this stunning story ends.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was an action packed book that reeled me in from the start. I really enjoyed this story because it was something unique that I haven't seen before. Although the mystery aspect was a little predictable, there were still moments that surprised me! I enjoyed reading about Nhika's character and some of the side characters as well. The only thing that felt off to me was the romance. The pacing of it was a little weird and I wanted more of it in the story. However, I cannot wait to read the next book.

Thank you Macmillan Children's and NetGalley for this ARC!

Nhika was such a fun character to follow. I enjoyed her inner ramblings and how she thought through things. That was much of the book but in this case it worked. It both drew you in to her character while also helping to solve the mystery. Good younger adult book.

DNF @ 30%.

Unfortunately I couldn't get into this one. I feel like a lot of it was the writing. It didn't hook me even with action at the beginning of the book. It kind of lost it's steam and started to slow. I also never got invested with the MC even though she had an interesting magic. The setting is very much a sci-fi/fantasy feel and sometimes sci-fi is hard for me to enjoy.

This highly anticipated book releases next month and it will definitely be a popular one.

Nhika, the main character, is a bloodcarver who is captured and sold to a wealthy family. The plans the family had for her was not what she expected and she is put into a murder investigation. All signs point to Ven Kochin, the assistant the murdered man’s good friend. Not only is Nhika trying to sold the murder, but she is also trying to stay alive.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Last Bloodcarver was such an unexpectedly original fantasy with skillful writing and pacing that drew me instantly into the story. Nhika, the sympathetic protagonist, is a bloodcarver who can alter human biology through her touch. In short, she can heal or kill at will and for that very reason, bloodcarvers are more often than not viewed as monsters. As such, she has lived much of her life in hiding and on her own. But when she is bought by a wealthy family to save the life of the only witness to their father's suspected murder, Nhika is swept up into a mystery and life she could never have imagined or dared to hope for. This story has a lot of what YA readers will enjoy including some of the typical tropes, a romance, and a major plot twist. But just as the premise was highly original, the ending is also just as unexpected!

Oh yeah, this one was really good. The setting was so neat! I can't wait til this comes in my Owlcrate. I love the cover too, it fits the aesthetic of the book very well.

Let me just start off by saying I loved this science and magic fusion. There's very much a basis of anatomy mixed with this idea of magic influencing our body and I could not get over it. I loved how seamless it felt, but also how the world Le creates builds on this magic. The magic not only makes touch dangerous: one touch being enough to weaponize one's body against itself. It creates this almost barrier of contact which allows people to push us away. To keep us at distance and be afraid of contact. At the same time, I loved the differences between Bloodcarver and Heartsooth. Not only in their applications, but also the ways that the society around Nhika, but also how these terms and images, illusions and perceptions, have been perpetuated by a society of fear and prejudice.

Ever since I first heard about this book, I knew I had to read it. I’m always up for uplifting Vietnamese voices, especially in YA, and I was particularly excited to find out about this Vietnamese-inspired fantasy!

Nhika is a bloodcarver, someone who can alter human biology and whose magic is vilified. She makes a living as a healer, secretly using her powers to treat people. When she’s caught one day by underground thugs, she’s sold to an aristocratic family who wants her to use her families to save the only witness to their father’s murder. As she spends more time with them though, she discovers deadly secrets amidst this mystery—especially with Ven Kochin, a physician’s assistant, popping up everywhere she turns.

I particularly loved the diasporic aspect of this book, which I feel like we don’t get to see much in YA fantasy. After the deaths of her grandmother and her mother, Nhika has no connections to her heritage. The only thing she’s held onto is her heartsoothing magic, although even then, her knowledge of the extent of her magic is very limited. She clings to what she can, though, and I completely related to her complex feelings about how deeply she wants to know more about her own culture without the means to do so.

Meanwhile, Kochin has more knowledge of their shared heritage, but he’s had to hide those parts of himself in a country that hates bloodcarvers. He and Nhika can’t help but be drawn to each other, even though he’s trying to keep her at an arm’s length to keep her safe.

I will say that I thought the romance was a little too fast-paced to me, just because I don’t think it had as much development as it could have. That being said though, the ending was so good and I can’t wait to read the sequel. If you’re in the market for the start of a thrilling duology with Vietnamese inspiration, you should definitely pick up The Last Bloodcarver!

Thank you so much to Macmillan Children's and NetGalley for this ARC of The Last Bloodcarver in exchange for an honest review. This book caught my eye just prowling through NetGalley's YA section and I'm so glad NetGalley gave me the chance to read this book before publication. This Viet-inspired world was lush, the magic a crafty and deft blend of science fiction and fantasy, and a plot that sucks you in and chugs along towards the finish line. I think these elements were well done, but it was the characters that left quite a bit to be desired. I didn't feel particularly connected to Nhika and I thought this would get better when I got to her romance with Kochin but that's where the flatness of the characters was most obvious. I believe this is a sequel, though, so I will be tuning into where this story goes!

3.75 stars

This fits The Diverse Baseline February Prompt C: A book by a BIPOC author with found family.

4.5 stars rounded up!

My friend, Ren, said she really liked this arc, so I was pretty excited to read it.

And let me tell you, it didn't disappoint! While the reveals were pretty obvious (nothing really surprised me, but YMMV), this was still a fun read.

One caveat though, it's been a few days since I've finished the arc, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending, which is why this isn't a perfect 5 stars.

I love how Nhika feels like a real, fully-fleshed out character instead of the typical strong female YA Chosen One trope. (I mean, she's technically a Chosen One, but it isn't in-your-face or mentioned all of the time to the point of exhaustion.) She's a very young adult, and she reads like one too. The choices she makes are reasonable for someone who grew up as part of a minority group whose family sought refuge in a neutral country when their homeland was ravaged by a colonizing nation.

For a YA novel, I think it does a really great job touching on issues such as classism (Nhika's life in poverty before the Congmis employ her), Othering (Nhika's Yarongese features, which separates her from the people of Theumas), and the diaspora experience (Nhika vs. Kochin's experiences as a mixed Yarongese person, plus their different schools of heartsoothing).

I hope we get to explore more of the world's geopolitics in the second book. We get enough to understand the situation with Nhika's people and the countries at large, but nothing more.

The novel does a really great job when it comes to Nhika's generational trauma. While she was born in Theumas, her mother and grandmother were originally from Yarong, which was colonized by Daltanny.

Her generational trauma and Yarongese diaspora experiences are clearly expressed in her yearning for a homeland she's never seen before or been to, and her desire to learn heartsoothing from a proper teacher. Her grandmother only had old textbooks to teach her with, and when Nhika is exposed to Theuman medicine and research, she realizes that her knowledge is sorely lacking. And since her people were murdered in a genocide, this knowledge is lost forever.

Here's a quote that really spoke to me:

"Surely, he didn't see heartsoothing the same way she did, because how could he? How could he understand that it was her connection to her lost family, a culture she’d never had the privilege of truly knowing? How could he know how it felt to soothe, to connect to someone so intimately, not a mere substitute for empathy but a step above it? How could he see that it was not some magic she could switch on and off at whim, but a permanent fixture of her identity?"

Quote taken from the arc and might be subject to change.

While I appreciate the similarities and contrasts between Nhika and Kochin, and their romance wasn't the worst thing I've ever read lol, I'm still not entirely sold on the ending. No spoilers, but since this is a duology, I'm hoping for more Nhika in the second book. Kochin's all right, I guess.

Anyway, Vanessa Le is a new author that I'm excited to read more of! I'm very eager to read the second book and anything else that she writes.

Thank you to Roaring Brook Press and NetGalley for this arc.

Great book. I love the magic and story lines, the connection between characters. Definitely enjoyed it.

We definitely need more of these Vietnamese mythology retellings. A solid read. Happy to add to our collection.

I am obsessed with this world and story, especially the way it addresses the opposing pulls so many diaspora kids feel to hide what makes them different in order to blend in and survive while also wanting to find a way to share the love and pride they have for their culture with a society that all too often seems only capable of either fearing and hating them for their differences or coveting and abusing them for those same things. I also loved the way heartsoothing toes the line between art and science and the story made it easy to see that the potential was there for it to be the perfect complement to augment the modern, rigorously science-based medicine trusted by the technocratic city of Theumas, if only the people of Theumas would give it a real chance instead of reviling it as untrustworthy, inferior, and dangerous. My one complaint is that while I think Nhika and Ven's sudden romance could have made perfect sense, especially on Nhika's side given her desperation for connection, the way it was written still just felt rushed in terms of development. However, I'm never big on the romance plotlines and the romance here felt secondary in this story anyway (despite the ending which I saw as being less about their romantic relationship anyway and more about Nhika's lack of strong ties to the living and determination to leave a legacy of heartsoothing she and her ancestors could be proud of), and the pieces of Nhika and Ven that stood out most to me were not related to their relationship to each other, but their relationships to heartsoothing. I'm looking forward to seeing how that develops and grows as the story continues, and I am dying to read the sequel (in part because I'm excited to learn more about Kochin's perspective in things and it seems like we'll probably get that in book 2!!) and can't wait to see what else Le writes after this series as well! There is some violence and a bit of gore as this book is quite action-packed and the fantasy world's history of genocide is addressed, but the romance is very PG, and I'd highly recommend this one for middle school up.

Where do i begin. I think my favorite thing about this book is the magic system, medicine and magic blend is absolutist intriguing. The writing was beautiful and I love the development of Nhiika and found it to feel so real. I really loved this book, i was engaged and fully captivated by the story. Thank you Vanessa Le for an amazing book. I will say, the ending fell a little flat for me but overall this book was a great read.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillian children’s publishing for this ARC.

I feel like there’s been a lot of exciting new Asian fantasy stories coming out this spring, and this one was definitely high on my TBR list, as I’m even less familiar with Vietnamese mythology than Chinese, Japanes, or Korean. The cover art is also very unique and intriguing, and I thought the main character’s magical trait of manipulating human biology had a lot of promise. I also love murder mysteries, so I was excited to see how well these two genres would be blended together. And, well, it was all pretty good!

What first stood out to me was the lush and descriptive style of writing the author employed. The story starts out fairly quickly as far as plot and pacing go, but I was still able to picture the details of this world and character. This felt like a fully realized, fully peopled fantasy world, complete with a culture that felt distinctive and elaborate. Of course, central to the story were Nhika’s bloodcarving abilities, and this detailed style of writing helped to truly flesh out how this power worked. Many fantasy stories devolve to fairly simplistic explanations of their magical elements, but here I felt like we were given a true insiders-look into Nhika’s magic. This felt important as it helped the reader understand why an ability that could be so useful to humanity could also be seen as something to fear and hate.

I also really liked Nhika’s character and the arc she has in this book. Through her eyes, we see the experiences of a diaspora character, a young woman who finds herself in a world that no longer feels like her own. Even more interesting, her experiences as an outsider who does not fit within this world were mirrored in the other main character Kochin who experiences a similar disconnect. But while this disconnection and “out-of-place-ness” might be similar between them, their experiences and views of how they fit (or don’t fit) within this world are very different.

That said, this is one of those rare circumstances where I feel like the story might have been better without any romance at all. I liked both of these characters, but frankly, by the time the romance really started to amp up, I’d forgotten that was even the direction it was heading. These two were very definitely enemies for much of the time, so the change of tone when it came, did feel a bit strange. It was also rather sudden, not feeling nearly as developed as many of the other aspects of the story.

Overall, this was a great debut novel! I had some quibbles here and there with the way the romance was developed, but the writing and world-building were strong and promise of great things to come from this author in the future!

Rating 8: Rich and vivid worldbuilding combined with a compelling vision of the diaspora experience created a fantastic debut all around!

(Link will go live on The Library Ladies on March 22)

"Love is the most twisted curse of them all"- Satoru Gojo

The Last Bloodcarver is a dark fantasy debut that had me hooked from page one. Based on Vietnamese culture and the medical-based magic system, we follow the main character Nhika as she can alter human biology through her touch. However, she's one of the last people with this ability as it's been passed down through her family lineage and practically wiped out due to the colonization and massacre of her culture's homeland. Brought into one of the city's most aristocratic families with the hopes of healing the witness of their father's death, Nhika is exposed to the deep secrets of the city and the power she holds in herself.

This book had me up and reading what would happen next, especially as Nhika navigates what it means to make meaningful connections and slowly break down the wall she's created. Le highlights the different relationships that Nhika creates, both romantically and platonically.

Now what got me the most while reading The Last Bloodcarver was the way Le discusses the diaspora experiences, especially for those whose family and culture have been colonized and driven from their homeland. As the daughter of a Cambodian refugee, the feelings both Nhika and Kochin have towards their heritage and culture are too familiar to me. Reading The Last Bloodcarver makes me see the thoughts I have and the power I have to still honor my ancestors and carry our legacies.

The Last Bloodcarver's ending still has me reeling. This book has altered my brain chemistry (wink wink). I can't wait to have a finished copy and see what the sequel will bring.