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There are two things people kill for on Trinity: cash and water
. Tonight, I’m killing for both.
The Bloody and The Damned —
Becca Coffindaffer
★★★★
18-year-old Val lives in the city of Covenant on Trinity, a planet covered in a copper-colored alloy. They’ve been working as an assassin, mostly contracting with the Gold Town Gang. After a job goes wrong, Val’s sisters are kidnapped, and they have to enlist the help of their former best friend, Orion, and partner-in-crime, Dani, to get them back. Navigating splintered friendships and a world riddled with inequality, Val fights to save their sisters and uncover Trinity’s secrets.
Review
I was excited to read this book, and it largely lived up to my expectations. Dystopian books always catch my eye, and the religious nature of Trinity’s society also drew me in. I could easily spend another few hundred pages with Val and their family and friends. Our primary trio – Val, Orion, and Dani – are each endearing in their own way, and their interactions, whether as a duo or all together, were some of my favorite scenes in the book. Val has a complicated relationship with both Orion and Dani, and it’s sweet to see those relationships evolve as they grow as people and come to better understand each other. The plot is fast-paced, and despite not having a lot of down time, we still get plenty of character-focused moments with the entire cast.
The planet, Trinity, is ruled by a church known as the Heraldic Ministry, and we get snippets of their religious and historical texts throughout the story that fill out our understanding of the culture and how it’s shaped the characters. We also learn about the religion from the characters’ themselves. Religion permeates every aspect of life on Trinity, so whether they believe in the Heralds or not, each of them engages with belief and provides a new perspective. The characters’ relationships and decisions are impacted by their experiences with the church in a way that reflects what’s it’s really like to live in a culture dominated by a high-demand religion.
The world as a whole is unique, but there are aspects of it that aren’t fully explained. We do get a good sense of how the world looks and what it’s like to live there pretty quickly. Anything that’s still unclear to me after finishing the book is information that main character Val wouldn’t have access to. Our understanding of the setting gets complicated as the novel goes on, and some aspects of it felt like a stretch. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the novel, but it did pull me out of it a little bit.
All in all, The Bloody and The Damned is a fun novel with a diverse cast of characters and fast-paced plot. My only real complaint is that some of the thematic elements are a little on the nose. Generally, Coffindaffer handled themes of family, class, and survival well, and I had a great time with this novel. If you’re interested in dystopian worlds or speculative fiction in general, give this one a try, and let me know what you think!
Content warnings (from the author): blood, classism, climate change, death, death/loss of parent(s), environmental damage, explosions, grief, kidnapping, knives, law enforcement abuse, murder, propaganda, prosperity gospel, religious trauma, resource inequality, violence, water restriction
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