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alt05's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This was a reread because I wanted to start the 2nd book, and it was as fun and interesting as the 1st time I read it! Andrea Stewart has built a world like none I have ever read before. The magic system, the characters, the plot, are all inventive and unique. The plot is fast and picks the reader up quickly. The twist and turns come at perfect moments in the plot. The characters are complex, funny, intelligent, and occupy both protagonist and antagonist roles. Sometimes, the differing POV leaves some plot holes, but nothing that interferes with the integrity of the story. Overall, couldn't put this book down the 1st and 2nd time! I loved it and can't wait to start the 2nd!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, and Classism
kaziaroo's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
On the whole I loved this – the characters, the magic system, the mystery were all amazing (plus a queer-normative world!). I would have liked it if the setting was more fleshed out, maybe going more into the cultures of the different islands rather than them all feeling the same, but overall the story was immersive enough and the characters lovable enough to look past that. I loved Jovis and Mephi in particular, and I liked Lin too; there's always a difficulty in amnesiac characters as they have such a short background on which to build a personality and identity, but I think the author did an admirable job. I wanted to see more of Bayan, alas... :(
My only real criticism is that I felt the book would have been better without Ranami and Phalue's POV chapters. Their story had an interesting message and moral dilemma but it just didn't seem to fit and their chapters were quite dull to get through compared to the rest of the book. As a novella on their own, those chapters would have been fine, but I found myself skim-reading them to get back to Jovis, Lin and even Sand. Maybe more will come of Ranami and Phalue in the sequel, but I just couldn't get behind their relationship or find the point of their storyline or its impact of the overall plot.
My only real criticism is that I felt the book would have been better without Ranami and Phalue's POV chapters. Their story had an interesting message and moral dilemma but it just didn't seem to fit and their chapters were quite dull to get through compared to the rest of the book. As a novella on their own, those chapters would have been fine, but I found myself skim-reading them to get back to Jovis, Lin and even Sand. Maybe more will come of Ranami and Phalue in the sequel, but I just couldn't get behind their relationship or find the point of their storyline or its impact of the overall plot.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Grief, Trafficking, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Violence, Death, Gaslighting, Body horror, and Medical content
Moderate: Physical abuse, Racism, Animal cruelty, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Mental illness
Minor: War
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
There's a pretty large cast of narrators, listening via audiobook helped enormously with keeping track of them since there are three audiobook narrators to handle all the perspectives. Those performances are great, making helping keep the characters distinct even when the same performed voiced multiple characters.
The plot has several threads, following each of the main characters. The blurb implies that Lin is the only main character, but Jovis plays an enormous role (meeting all but one of the other main characters at various points), and the romance between Phalue and Ranami felt complex and real. Lin is the daughter of the emperor, trying to get her father's approval by getting back memories she lost in a sickness several years ago. Jovis is a smuggler who is trying to find his wife who was kidnapped five years ago. He ends up rescuing children from having their shards taken. Phalue is the daughter of a governor on one of the islands, and Ranami is her girlfriend who keeps turning down Phalue's marriage proposals because Phalue doesn't seem to understand the enormity of her privilege in comparison to everyone on the island. There's a woman called Sand who is trying to escape her current situation, I don't want to spoil anything about her but she seems set up to do much more in the sequel.
Lin has spent years trying to get her father's approval, and is frustrated by his ableist insistence that she's not whole unless she can get back the memories she lost. Desperate to get him to pay attention to her as she is and not as she was, Lin starts copying his keys to get access to rooms that might hold knowledge of the magic he should be teaching her. She's in competition with her foster brother Bayan since he regained more of his memories and seems to continually be one step ahead of her in getting the emperor's attention.
The relationship between Phalue and Ranami briefly dips into some toxic territory as Phalue doesn't seem to understand or know how to take seriously Ranami's concerns. It definitely helps that both of them are narrators, so their perspectives are shown directly at various points.
Jovis ends up with an animal companion after he saves it from the water during a disaster early one. Mephi is pretty cool and not annoying, which is a relief because sometimes I end up detesting animal sidekicks.
The magic system is based on using bone taken from the empire's citizens as children. The shards can be used to power constructs, and once in use they slowly drain the life force of their original owner. The emperor uses an elaborate array of constructs to do all the imperial bureaucracy which could be done by people, but he doesn't trust anyone else to do it right. This setup means that the way the lower classes are exploited is more than just cruelty and resource hoarding by the rich, but that their very lives can be taken, slowly, by an emperor they'll never see, if he happens to pick their shard from a drawer and use it to fuel a construct. I love the way the magic system is inseparable from the political structure and brewing uprising.
The plot has several threads, following each of the main characters. The blurb implies that Lin is the only main character, but Jovis plays an enormous role (meeting all but one of the other main characters at various points), and the romance between Phalue and Ranami felt complex and real. Lin is the daughter of the emperor, trying to get her father's approval by getting back memories she lost in a sickness several years ago. Jovis is a smuggler who is trying to find his wife who was kidnapped five years ago. He ends up rescuing children from having their shards taken. Phalue is the daughter of a governor on one of the islands, and Ranami is her girlfriend who keeps turning down Phalue's marriage proposals because Phalue doesn't seem to understand the enormity of her privilege in comparison to everyone on the island. There's a woman called Sand who is trying to escape her current situation, I don't want to spoil anything about her but she seems set up to do much more in the sequel.
Lin has spent years trying to get her father's approval, and is frustrated by his ableist insistence that she's not whole unless she can get back the memories she lost. Desperate to get him to pay attention to her as she is and not as she was, Lin starts copying his keys to get access to rooms that might hold knowledge of the magic he should be teaching her. She's in competition with her foster brother Bayan since he regained more of his memories and seems to continually be one step ahead of her in getting the emperor's attention.
The relationship between Phalue and Ranami briefly dips into some toxic territory as Phalue doesn't seem to understand or know how to take seriously Ranami's concerns. It definitely helps that both of them are narrators, so their perspectives are shown directly at various points.
Jovis ends up with an animal companion after he saves it from the water during a disaster early one. Mephi is pretty cool and not annoying, which is a relief because sometimes I end up detesting animal sidekicks.
The magic system is based on using bone taken from the empire's citizens as children. The shards can be used to power constructs, and once in use they slowly drain the life force of their original owner. The emperor uses an elaborate array of constructs to do all the imperial bureaucracy which could be done by people, but he doesn't trust anyone else to do it right. This setup means that the way the lower classes are exploited is more than just cruelty and resource hoarding by the rich, but that their very lives can be taken, slowly, by an emperor they'll never see, if he happens to pick their shard from a drawer and use it to fuel a construct. I love the way the magic system is inseparable from the political structure and brewing uprising.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Grief, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Ableism, Racism, Bullying, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Confinement, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, War, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
Minor: Death of parent, Drug use, and Vomit
maelikesbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Solid good time
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Animal cruelty, Grief, Slavery, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Animal death and Body horror
lanid's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Body horror
lucystolethesky's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Trafficking, Grief, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Violence, Classism, Confinement, Murder, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, and Trafficking
Minor: Violence, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Incest, and Grief
anni_swanilda's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Death of parent, Violence, Gore, Murder, and Body horror
Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Grief, Animal cruelty, and Kidnapping
chalkletters's review against another edition
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
After a run of book club books I was immediately excited about (‘muggle goes to dark Hogwarts’, 'the navy with dragons’), we’ve now hit a few books where the premise doesn’t particularly hook me. Which isn’t to say that the books themselves won’t be good! Only that they can’t be summed up in a catchy elevator pitch.
The beginning of The Bone Shard Daughter left me a little dubious. In good news, it came out of the gate at a good, quick pace, with things immediately happening. In somewhat less good news, it seemed to centre around an amnesia plot. When I took a creative writing module at university, it seemed that everyone wanted to be write about either being in a coma or having amnesia, so my history involves having read it handled pretty amateurishly.
Fortunately, Andrea Stewart was anything but amateurish. She managed perspective shifts in a way I haven’t seen before, and yet they immediately felt right. I didn’t even notice until the end that some perspectives are written in the first person while others are in the third, and that’s the kind of thing that jarred me out of The Light Between Oceans pretty badly!
The Bone Shard Daughter is as much a mystery as it is a fantasy novel, in large part thanks to that amnesia plot I mentioned. I was always trying to work out who characters really were, how they were related to one another, why they were acting in the way they did. I’m not a reader who constantly tries to guess where books are going, but The Bone Shard Daughter really caught me up in the way a murder mystery does. It even has what you might call 'a second body’ partway through. My notes are full of questions: 'Is X causing the memory loss?’, 'Is Y related to Z?’. Many of them get answered, but there are enough left over that I really want to read the next book in the series.
Because there was so much else going on, the character development didn’t stand out to me immediately. It was only towards the end that I really realised just how integral it was to the novel. I can’t talk about the intensity of Lin’s character arc without spoiling a huge chunk of her plot, so I won’t, but Phalue’s reluctance to come to terms with her privilege is something I haven’t seen before in a fantasy novel. The Bone Shard Daughter compares favourably with Witchsign because I’m supposed to dislike the bad parent, rather than being expected to sympathise with him. I found that much more effective.
The Bone Shard Daughter was a very different kind of fantasy novel, so much so that it feels weird to compare it to other book club books that I’ve enjoyed. That said, this is only the third time I’ve immediately added the next book in a series to my 'want to read’ list, which has to say something!
Content Warnings
Minor: Murder, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Child death, and Kidnapping
katymat18's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Grief, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Gore, and Murder
Minor: Confinement
hanz's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Interesting world and magic system, but not all of the perspectives worked for me. Felt like a couple of different books joined together at times. Saw some of the reveals coming very early on, but the ending teased interesting things for future books, so I'm interested to read the sequel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Death, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Confinement, Gore, and Grief