This is a hard book to review. It's substantially long, and it has all the things I'm usually a complete sucker for - huge character development, an arguably extended cast (although all secondary characters, apart from the protagonist), and weird religion/magic arguments that add more depth to the world rather than it being a straight-forward hack n' slash. But I just didn't really enjoy it. 
 I think a lot of it lies in the writing style; it felt like too much, but not enough at the same time. Half of this book could probably be chopped out but then I'd hope it would be replaced with other chapters. There was a lot of unnecessary additions to parts, a lot of clumsy wording, that meant some parts felt lacking in pace and that the author was just rushing out the bulk of the book for an editor's deadline. It's a shame since many plot points were not given the extravagance they deserved - some twists just didn't have the impact they should have. A large one near the end just didn't make me care, it was more of a subtle realization before a shrug of the shoulders. Given the nature of the twist I probably should have cared more, but I just... didn't. That's not a good thing. 
 Alongside the writing nit-picks, there were also elements of the story that nagged at me throughout - the protagonist was fantastically skilled, his biggest flaws during training seeming to be that he was only second-best at some things and not the top of the class. He was insightful and mature from the delicate age of twelve, he was the perfect leader who made no mistakes from thirteen, and was heralded as the 'most popular brother' by half-way through the novel. I mostly put this down to unreliable narrator (as was highlighted during interval chapters in 'present time') but there's only so far that excuse can get you when the story itself is simply boring, the protagonist apparently lacking depth and simply being a cardboard cut-out to get stuff done. Sometimes, that's exactly how it felt. 
 That said, there were other bits that Ryan did carry well throughout the book and at times his writing made what could have been a convoluted cycle of tropes instead an understandable cycle of tropes. I was unimpressed with the originality but, now that the 'backstory' of Vaelin is out the way, perhaps the sequel will be better? I'll be giving it a shot and hoping to see more of the potential I saw in rare moments during Blood Song; given the next installment has multiple pov's, I tentatively have my hopes up.