Eh. I think I just expected better from M.L. Wang after The Sword of Kaigen. This one was way too preachy. I have to give credit where it is due, however: it is a readable book, and not difficult to get through at all, nor boring.

(spoiler)

I'm sad we didn't get any closure with Aunt Winny and Alba.

(end of spoiler)

But that's exactly what I mean when I say it was just eh. Blood Over Bright Haven was excessively focused on the main character, Sciona, and her character development, that everyone else—including the secondary character, Thomil—just seemed like props to be used in service of her growth. Perhaps that was the point of the book? The one-dimensional characterisation of all the other characters wouldn't have taken me quite by surprise, except that in The Sword of Kaigen, the characters were much more thoroughly fleshed out.

Which makes me wonder if Wang intended to write the book this way all along.

Because the other thing is, she has a clear agenda in this book; it's extremely preachy to the point of being infuriating. The parallels between Tiran's oppression of the Kwen, and the U.S. of the indigenous and other minorities (and willful ignorance of the human costs to live in such luxury compared to the rest of the world), are obnoxiously blatant.

I deeply dislike when authors do this—treat readers like they can't understand their point unless they shove it down readers' throats, that is—it drives me mad. That's another reason why I didn't enjoy it as much.

However, if the point was to be preachy and drive her point across, keeping everyone except Sciona flat makes sense. Sciona is the one who must come to terms with her white privilege, face the atrocities she and her people have committed on other peoples, both knowingly and unknowingly, and have a reckoning with herself and all she has ever known.

By showing us the process, Wang puts on display how agonising it is, how it can literally bring someone to the brink of death—and yet, free them all the same.

I find this quote to sum up the overarching theme of the book well:

"She's hope."
"Hope?" Carra repeated.
"She's proven that she can change her mind," he said.

So, my personal enjoyment aside, perhaps in spite of what I dislike about Blood Over Bright Haven, it's not about that; it's about the hope of people in power being willing to change, and give justice to those they've harmed.