Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Children of Blood and Bone

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

8 reviews

kyrstin_p1989's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Stunning. This book is about taking back your power and embracing your magic. It’s well-written, interesting, and powerful. The chapters are short, the characters are interesting, and the plot is exciting.

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micaelamariem's review

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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? It's complicated

5.0

I’ll post a full review on my blog in the morning but omg this was a wonderful book! Based on Orisha mythology from West Africa, and inspired by the urge to fight back against police brutality of unarmed Black citizens, Tomi Adeyemi examines a fantasy world where magic users are stripped of their power and beaten down until a few characters decide they want a change, and how they can fight back against how they were taught their whole lives. Loved the character development, the world building, the important themes, and the shocking betrayals. Ends on a cliffhanger and I need the next book now!

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ericageorge91's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Spoilers ahead!

Children of Blood and Bone (CoBaB) is about a quest to restore magic to the oppressed dîviner/maji people in a Nigerian-inspired world. It’s a multiple POV book that follows Zélie (a dîviner that lost her maji mother one fateful night), Amari (daughter of a violent king that wants to rid all magic), and Amari’s brother, Inan (heir to the throne with secret maji abilities).

My favorite part of this book is the mythology of Sky Mother and her deity children. As a kid, I loved that part of the Greek Mythology units where we learned about Zeus and the Olympians magical abilities and this book brought back that joy. I wished CoBaB explored more of that mythology in the story. Maybe, they’ll delve more into it in the sequel?

This is a YA book. I felt like the plot was predictable, but entertaining for the most part. This story definitely doesn’t shy away from the brutal oppression of the dîviner/maji in this world so be aware of that.

Random Thoughts:

Inan’s POV: Of the different POVs, reading Inan’s was the most frustrating experience. He harbors a lot of self-hatred after discovering his maji abilities. While this is completely understandable in light of his upbringing, it was still a lot 🙇🏾‍♀️ If this was a book full of trans characters, it would be like reading Kaitlyn Jenner’s POV and seeing her committed to destroying gender-affirming care, you know? I understand internalized hatred, but I need you to be so fucking for real right now. Do you really think they’re gonna pick you? Did Kaea not completely show her ass when she used her dying breath to call you a magical slur?? Do you really think your father won’t treat you the same 🤨

The Celebration: While that gods festival was beautiful and touching, the lack of urgency I often find in YA books needs to be studied. Did we not learn from the last time pursuers caught up with you when you let your guard down? Why THE FUCK are we throwing a party when you haven’t accomplished your task?? A vicious king is after you and you’re over here making eyes at your enemy-turned-love 🤦🏾‍♀️

The Romance: Amari and Tzain…fine…at least they’ve been traveling together so there was time for that relationship to develop. Inan and Zélie’s?? I know it’s supposed to be enemies-to-lovers but it felt so rushed and contrived. It just didn’t feel earned…at all. If I’m being honest, the only romantic relationship I believed in was Amari and Binta’s and they’re not even canon 💀

Zélie and Inan’s views on magic: Their flip flopping over whether or not magic should be dispersed didn’t feel consistent with their upbringing. Why does the girl who grew up revering magic fuck up once and immediately think, “Hold on now…maybe everyone getting magic isn’t a good idea?” Why do you have the guy who grew up despising magic have a moment of clarity and immediately gets on board with it?

Characterization: Amari was pretty fleshed out and had a decent amount of character development, but the rest of this cast felt flat. I’m not in love with any of these characters. Like, I would politely hold the door open for Zélie Adebola, but I would gently lay my jacket (or myself) across a puddle to protect Bree Matthews’ feet, you know what I mean?

Pacing: Along with Zelie and Inan’s romance, I felt like Inan’s character arc in CoBaB could have spanned across the entire trilogy. Same goes for gathering the magical items. Having them all in the first part of the book felt entirely too Convenient.

Lingering Questions: How did the king find Baba in the end? Did they explain that his sudden capture? And how is magic showing up with Inan and Amari? When it was just Inan, I thought it was because the queen cheated. Unless she did it multiple times? Or is this supposed to mean the gods found this non-maji worth it to gift powers? I don’t know.

Overall, I’m mildly curious to see where this story goes, but not pressed 🤷🏾‍♀️

TW: Murder/execution, grief (loss of parent), sexual harassment, colorism, child abuse (mention), death, arson, infidelity (mention), torture, self hate, abduction, PTSD, violence, animal death (brief), body shaming (brief)

Rep: BIPOC characters (Nigerian-inspired world)

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trayslays's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful tense fast-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

2.75

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lunep's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad 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? Yes

5.0

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durrareadsstuff's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective fast-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

4.75

Such an amazing book! The world-building was done so well, I'd say it was quite complex and yet easy to understand at the same time. So many themes were covered in the book, mainly oppression, racism, grief but also friendship, understanding, honestly, I learned so much from reading this. The characters were so well developed. At first I kind of hated them, but then as they grew, I found myself rooting for them (well, most of them anyway) and it's just so brilliant.

I have never found a character to be so relatable like Amari. Reading her povs, I mean, I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

I mean, she was practically useless on that ship. And the way she kept telling herself to freaking move and do something but remained frozen and how she kind of made everything worse, I FELT THAT. But it was so much watching her grow, seeing her embrace the "lionaire" that was inside her all along. It kind of made me have hope in myself. So, I owe this book one.

I think the character development is my favourite thing in the book. I mean, the characters have come so far. Like how Zélie went from someone who constantly doubted herself to becoming someone so strong she was a force to behold.

And Inan? *sigh* I was really rooting for you man, and I'm sorry to say this, but I'm kind of relieved thar you died. Cause to tell you the truth, you were freaking stupid. And after you've come so far! Such a shame. I originally wanted to give this a 5 star, but Inan angered me so much I just can't. But you know, it was refreshing that the enemies-to-lovers crashed and the love interest died cause he was being an idiot anyways. Okay fine, I might give this a 5 star later. All that aside, I can see how Inan represents someone who grew with a horrible parentage, someone who was taught, from a very yound age to hate and be scared of the maji, and it was so nice to watch him fall in love with Zélie, and to discover his own powers which made him re-evaluate his upbringings. But sadly, the fear crept up on him again, and yeah, it was pretty devastating that he was killed by the one person he worked so hard to appease.

Besides that, the writing style is so genius! I mean, I'm not and english or literature major, but the way she describes abstract things like feelings using physical symbolism(?) It takes my breath away every single time.

Now chaos surrounds me, pulsing through every breath and heartbeat. It sings as blood splatters through the air, screams as boats explode into oblivion.

Reading this was like watching a movie, and for a very long book, I can say for certain that I never got bored. Loved it ❤️

Bonuses - multi-pov and the chapters are super short!

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sarah984's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

For the first 200 pages, this was a 4-star read for me. The world is vast and interesting, the magic system is cool, and I loved the idea of an epic quest novel (take the artifacts to the Place and do the Ritual) that's not set in generic medieval European fantasyland. The characters’ conflicts felt realistic and while they could be a little impulsive it was understandable because they're teens.

Then I hit the halfway point and the plot ground to a halt to do this extremely generic reylo-style romance (complete with force bond and nonsensical insta love) and then just one stupid thing after another happened and all of the goodwill the first half had generated burned off immediately. There is an extremely graphic torture scene involving one of the female characters that is told through the lens of how the most boring male character in existence feels about it.

I also don't like books where the oppressed people are shown to be extremely dangerous, especially when the author is clearly linking their plight to real-world oppression, and this got worse in the second half.

I liked the plot twist at the end (though it was really unclear why that happened) but not enough to save the reading experience for me.

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batwinggoth's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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