Children of Virtue and Vengeance follows Zélie, Amari and Inan after Zélie and Tzain's father is killed when she brings magic back. Accidentally, this creates a new class of people with magic and what follows is a drawn-out conflict between Inan and Amari as to who should inherit the throne because Amari wants to enfranchise the magi and Inan wants to as well, but in a different way. Meanwhile, the magi don't really want either of them on the throne and want Zélie, who is not interested in the job.

So, I didn't really like this book. I was ambivalent after the first one and came down pretty heavily on not enjoying this one. In large part, this is a question of personal taste - I'm not a huge fan of first-person narrative, and I didn't really enjoy switching between three different first person narrators. Second issue: I didn't really see any of the characters growing and developing. Inan's intentions were questionable and shifting in the first book, here, having insight into his motivation meant that I knew he had good intentions the entire time, so Zélie and Amari not knowing and behaving accordingly became incredibly frustrating because there was no element of suspense for me as a reader. Meanwhile, Amari spends the whole book determined to be a good queen and only realizes at the very end that she's bad at it. This leads to a very repetitious plot in which she keeps wanting to Do a Big Thing and then it backfires. Zélie is the only main character to really have growth and learn something about herself and overcome something in this story, but it's hampered by everyone else running in circles and also by Zélie not really learning anything about Inan and instead sticking to stubbornly being against him.

Next issue: Tzain has n o t h i n g to do in this book. He just kinda stands around and when Amari or Zélie need someone to talk at he shows up and is supportive. He might as well be wallpaper. This bothered me because I liked him and also because it very much shifts the plot from being about all of Orisha to being only about the conflict between the crown and the maji.

Finally, much like in the last book, it all just felt very rushed to me. The characters keep complaining about wanting to end this war, which has been happening for like...six days? I know months pass in this book, but they're so rushed over. There are maybe two scenes featuring characters training for battle; there's very little learning process etc. Maybe I'm too accustomed to the fantasy trope of the training montage and overcoming difficulties etc. I don't know, it just didn't compel me because I felt like all of the characters abilities were handed to them, and all of the characters conflicts were things that should have been solved with more dialogue as opposed to more repetition of the same beats.