By Justine Trinh
Ever since I finished The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le, I have been waiting for the sequel to come out. Following where its predecessor left off with Nhika’s death, Ven Kochin, Nhika’s love interest, promises to find a way to bring her back to life. Like Dr. Santo, the antagonist of the first book, Kochin believes the answer to resurrection lies in hearthsoothing, an ability that allows its user to alter human biology with one touch. He is so desperate and grief-stricken that he volunteers as a soldier to fight in a war that he has no stake in to travel to Yarong, the island the first heartsooths called home. Months later, Nhika wakes up in an unfamiliar world where her country is at war and Kochin is nowhere to be found. Putting the pieces together, Nhika attempts to find him.
I liked how Le continued the theme of life, death, and resurrection of loved ones. In the first book, Dr. Santo destroys his own life and the lives of others in his obsession to bring his son back to life, and he resorts to murdering his close friend and blackmailing Kochin. Kochin is a direct victim of Dr. Santo’s obsession and witness to how Dr. Santo’s grief wrecked his life. Despite this, Kochin goes down the same path as his mentor/blackmailer despite Nhika’s sacrifice. Nhika died, so that Kochin could live and be free of Dr. Santo, and for a while, Kochin tries. He returns home to his family, whom he has not seen for years, and tries to reconnect with them. However, he returns home as a different person and cannot articulate the horrors he has been through. Simultaneously, his family compares who he is with who he used to be, and Kochin can never be the same as he is held down by his past. He continues to lug Nhika’s body in a life preserving casket which is symbolic of his inescapable past. He cannot live his own life while Nhika is dead, and thus, he is fated to follow in Dr. Santo’s footsteps even though he has seen where it metaphorically leads. While his methods are different from those of Dr. Santo’s as he joins a war, his actions still affect the ones around him.
I also liked how Le played with language and naming, specifically when it came to heartsooths. This idea was also picked up in the first book where Nhika is referred to as and believed to be the last bloodcarver, until Kochin reveals he also has the same ability. The term bloodcarver is associated with fear because it has been villainized by society and colonization. People are afraid of bloodcarvers as monsters who take delight in killing, and so their extermination was justified. However, the original term for this ability is heartsooth, which has a connotation of healing. Both Nhika and Kochin refer to themselves as heartsooths as they use this ability to heal the people, but at the same time, Kochin also shows how he can use this ability to inflict harm. In his quest to get to Yarong, he is not one of the soldiers initially chosen to go off to battle, so he uses his ability to disqualify someone else. Like any ability, heartsoothing has the potential to hurt and heal, but the dominant society in the novel tends to focus on the harm rather than the good. Thus, Nhika and Kochin are cast as different and have to hide who they really are, which reflects the real-life experience of marginalized people having to hide their culture in fear of being seen as savage or backwards.
When I got His Mortal Demise in the mail, I had every intention to pace myself. But like its predecessor, I could not put it down because I had to know what happened to Kochin. In Nhika’s narrative, Le offers hints to show how Kochin’s choices affected the present while in Kochin’s narrative, we are given the justification of his actions. Because it was a year in between me reading The Last Bloodcarver and reading His Mortal Demise, I could not recall all the events and characters of the first book, but Le does a good job providing important details recapping those vital moments without breaking the narrative. I really enjoyed His Mortal Demise, and a part of me is sad to know this is the end of the duology as I loved getting lost in the world Le created. But at the same time, I found this conclusion satisfying enough that I did not mind temporarily saying goodbye for now. I cannot wait to reread and share the duology with my younger cousins sometime in the future when they start reading books like Percy Jackson. I will be sure to slip them a copy.
Justine Trinh (she/hers) is an ethnic studies instructor at Butte College. She currently serves as
book club leader on the board of Soapberry Review, a journal for reviews of Asian
American literature. Her research interests include critical refugee studies, memory studies,
family and trauma, and forced departure and disownment.