With all of the hype about this book before the release, I was excited to get my hands on a copy of the book. I struggled in the beginning of the book with the use of modern language but I also recognize I am not apart of the demographic for this book, but I quickly settled into the pacing and language usage of the book. BOY am I glad I did! This book was amazing!

Malik is a vivid character that was well developed and voiced throughout the book. The writing in this book really takes off when he arrives on campus and I could not read this book fast enough! The magic, the HBCU vibe, the drama of young love, and the development of trying to find your place in the world was painted well throughout the book. I 100% recommend this book and cannot wait for the next adventure!

Malik is a teenage boy who has really been through it. He's 17, emancipated and ready to take on the world. But where he decides to start is by rescuing his foster brother Taye from their abusive foster parents. But his plans to rescue Taye go awry and he ends up meeting a mysterious man who reveals to him that he has a grandmother who is out there looking for him. Malik finds himself in New Orleans being pulled into a world full of magic and secrets. And it seems the key to unveiling the truth about his mother is attending a magical university for Black students.

So Blood at the Root was one of my most anticipated 2024 releases.

Malik is a teenage boy who has really been through it. He's 17, emancipated and ready to take on the world. But where he decides to start is by rescuing his foster brother Taye from their abusive foster parents. But his plans to rescue Taye go awry and he ends up meeting a mysterious man who reveals to him that he has a grandmother who is out there looking for him. Malik finds himself in New Orleans being pulled into a world full of magic and secrets. And it seems the key to unveiling the truth about his mother is attending a magical university for Black students.

This book was action packed and the plot keeps readers guessing until the very end. Malik has a strong voice and distinct personality and I appreciated that he and his supporting cast felt imperfect. Young people don't speak the same way those of us who are older do. Sometimes they say things that can be offensive and it's not from a place of malice. I thought that was captured well here.

Were some of the references a little too millennial and at times a little much? Yes, but that improved as the book went on and the story started to unfold. Once we get more into campus life and classes the book really shines. Sometimes fantasy books set at schools tend to stray away from having the teens attend classes but this one does a great job showcasing life at this school as Malik is training.

Now to say this is a book without trauma would be inaccurate. Malik has undergone and still undergoes a lot. But what made this book stand out to me compared to many other YA fantasies by Black authors that I've read was the authentic voice and constant centering of Black characters. There were no prominent white characters taking up space here. There was no token white bestie who said all the right things. While some of their problems do stem from hundred's of years of racism and mistreatment it never felt like whiteness was centered here. The messages here felt like they were for Black readers to appreciate and celebrate their history rather than for white people to see their humanity. There were a lot of little touches where I can tell the author put a lot of thought into building this world.

And I'm interested in seeing how things continue with the revelations we had at the end.

I received an arc from the author in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the journey from the moment I was introduced to Malik, and I can't wait to continue reading the next installment when it's scheduled to come out.

A teenager on the run from his past finds the family he never knew existed and the community he never knew he needed at an HBCU for the young, Black, and magical.

Really great characters, great plot, well-written. Reminded me a little of Legendborn. Loved it!

Thank you to netgalley and Random House Children's, Labyrinth Road for allowing me to read this book. I really enjoyed this book. Its nice to see black boy joy and to see that we have a space now in magic

Some of the book's greatest hits, "...I'm ret to go","Ahhhh sookie sookie,", "BFFR", & "...bruh, you hella corny". This book is a mixture between, Stomp the Yard, Wakanda Forever, & Harry Potter(if they all were black). The story takes place in the south with a young, hard shelled, young man named Malik who is just trying to find his place. After losing his mother ten years ago and discovering his magic, he seeks answers. So off to Caiman University! Some pros...the world building and the ancestry of the characters were excellent to read. I loved all the past and current connections in the story. I did also love the fight scenes. Now some cons...you can tell a millennial wrote this. I found myself turned off and distracted by some of the speech in the book, some I included at the beginning of this review. My advice to the author is to take down some of that because it got in the way of the storytelling, especially when all these older adults were around. Also, the levels of betrayal in the story seemed too predictable. Overall, I finished it in two days on my Kindle and I would read the sequel.

Gave me legendborn and harry potter vibes but with a male black mic. Loved every minute of it and can’t wait for the rest of the series to come out.

After reading most of the first chapter, I realized this wasn't going to work for me. I checked out Goodreads to see if my thoughts were seen, and there are many reviews that were saying the same things as I was thinking. I no longer which to read this, but I do hope there are readers out there who will like this story!

Blood at the Root is promising start to a young adult fantasy style I want to see more of. I adored the use of Ebonics and Slang within the dialogue of the writing as it made the speech feel more natural and called back to the immersive dialect experience I had reading classics like Mark Twain's work. I would have liked to see more of the actual hoodoo faith and practice represented in the narrative but understand that by the nature of fiction and fantasy some liberties needed to be taken. I will certainly be reading more by this author in the future.

HBCU pride to the fullest. I follow this author on TikTok so seeing him promote this book, had me super excited to get a copy of it. This book was everything I needed in a magically world, the character development, to the world building along with how the pride of HBCU'ness (idk if that's a word) was heavy placed in this story. I hope that Mr. Williams does a second or a spin-off!

I was not a fan of how this book was written, more specifically the Ebonics. It made the story hard to read, and I was sooooo excited for it.

Black boys in the fantasy genre is not something we get often, and when we do, it’s inspiring to see it being done in a way that feels considerate. The author explains at the beginning of the book how he came to realizing Malik’s story, and this might be emotional of me, but I was moved. I connected with that reality and was able to enjoy the book more because of it.

Overall, I’ll say that this is a solid debut. Some aspects of the novel were not my favorite, particularly what I considered to be over use and even misuse of slang for Gen-Zers. Either way, this is the kind of book I’d recommend to my teenage brother and cousins!

Wow does this main character go through A LOT. Blood AT The Root is well written, has a great narrative town but the trauma this boy goes through is going to make or break the reader. I love the idea of a magical hbcu but the world building there could have been sharper.

One thing we don't often see is Black people in fantasy, and more specifically, Black men.

I think one of the reasons why I enjoyed Blood at the Root in the way I did is because of the representation of Black men in fantasy. I would love to read more books like these.

My only complaint with the novel is that it was so trauma-heavy. I would have loved to see more joy experienced by Malik. I also wish that it wasn't so stereotypical and slang-heavy. I did find that to be a bit distracting in some parts. Overall, I enjoyed reading the novel.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Children's for giving me an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Blood at the Root was an interesting book and certainly one of the more stand-out reads that I've picked up this year. There are positives in this book that are held back by a myriad of negatives.

To state the good, I love Malik's voice and narration. As a Black person, reading this character is refreshing and *easy*, so much so that I'm excited to pick up to audiobook to see how his voice translates. This makes for a quick read where I'm excited to turn each new page.

Unfortunately, this is where the positives stop. In my opinion, the worldbuilding wasn't much developed at all and we saw very little of the actual Hoodoo faith. Baron Samedi didn't do much besides smoke and dance and all of the conjuring classes that Malik took didn't real seem "Hoodoo." A lot of the women in this story were underdeveloped, including the love interest, and paired with Malik's constant objectification of them, it made the story hard to read at times. Finally, the numerous pop culture references distracted from the story as there was one almost every two pages.

I really wanted to like this book ever since seeing the cover but BATR just didn't deliver.

There was definitely a lot of TRAUMA in this book so be warned. I really wanted our main character to catch a break and was rooting for him the entire time.

Definitely an interesting read, but there were parts (all the trauma) that I struggled to get through. I totally understand that the author wanted to make us feel uncomfortable and wake up, but I would be lying if I didn't say I wish this book had a bit more of an upbeat twist/ I was reading about black joy.

I was really excited when I learned of this book. It is hard to find fantasy books, especially young adult fantasy books that feature a POC main character. It was interesting to see the main character start out thinking that magic was something amazing but would never happen to someone like him, to go to having it but hating/fearing it because of what happened when he first gained it. He had to learn to accept this power and himself which I feel that there are a lot a people in the world that don't entirely accept themselves but learn to love themselves and become empowered by it.

This book is full of stereotypes and reads like someone trying entirely too hard to be hip and show off to their white friends how "hood" they are for cool points. As an educator, I would sadly not give this one to my Black male students as it feels like the book equivalent of a professional development speaker telling teachers to let kids make up a rap or play Tupac during work time in an effort to "relate" to their Black students. Storywise, this book has very weak worldbuilding that sloppily meshes together nonsensical African lore (the names OMG!) and uses extremely misspelled and incorrect Caribbean patois in the spells and magic. Maybe it was intentional but it made me cringe hearing Africans described as dark as night, wearing war paint, and spelling their names in an almost mocking way--African names and words have meaning in their spellings and this author seemed to not get that by hastily making things up. It does not seem like much thought or time was given to the research part of this Afro/Caribbean-inspired magic system and the author was just like "This sounds cool and I heard of it in passing but don't feel like making sure I'm not unintentionally perpetuating stereotypes/butchering cultural lore that I'm not directly part of". Besides that, the romance is bleh. No development, explanation of backstory, or believable on-page relationship building at all and Alexis just seems there just to be there. The conflict is not really there and the scene changes are very jarring. The writing and plot aren't strengths in this book, so I suspect a lot is riding on the premise. Unfortunately, the execution is not there. Also, there is an ableist line "Why is my magic acting remedial right now". I know this is an ARC but this was a huge letdown and honestly, as a Black person, this was embarrassing to read. It feels like one of those TV shows where they try way too hard to BE BLACKITY BLACK combined with a Tubi movie. The book has also been promoted as having no trauma which makes you think it's more of a light-hearted fantasy but there is a heavy emphasis on "the man, the system" and a scene where the cops show up and try to arrest one of the characters. If you want a book that centers Black boys but in a non- "yo wassup my nizzle, what's popping" cringe-worthy way then I suggest Angie Thomas, Julian Winters, Terry Benton, Jason Reynolds, Tiffany D. Jackson, or Lamar Giles.

Thanks to Random House Children’s & Labyrinth Road for this digital ARC from NetGalley.

Blood Root is the Black fantasy novel many people needed growing up. I loved the representation of a black boy from the South as the main character, and the ties between voodoo & ancestral magic & Black History/inventions. Uncle Samedi ‘s character was amazing. The Black culture references was great to see.

Mama Aya was my favorite character, but disappointingly, many of the women and girls in this book (including the love interest) were not fully developed characters.

This book feels filled with trauma, from losing a parent, navigating the foster system, and suddenly being in a university basically on his own. His foster brother get to relax some, um when does he? Dude cannot catch a break!!

I wish that the book had more black boy joy and more HBCU traditions. I saw aspects of world building that approached a magical HBCU - but didn’t quite make it there.

The pop culture references were a lot and distracting. To me, this book is written like it is a tv show and a bit choppy.

Really liked the cover art and the premise! I was really looking forward to reading it but overall I think the writing could have been better.