Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

44 reviews

intoxicatedflower's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense 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? No

5.0

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mahra's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

As a fellow West African person, I really enjoyed the world created (the magic system is a bit confusing though). The prose was also pretty good.

However, it was way too tropey and predictable for me. I was very excited to read this, and this is exactly what I did not want to see. For me, it falls into the category of books that borrow way too much from the most popular YA fantasy books that we’ve all read (you know them). And because of that, reading this felt like reading a pale copy of many books that I’ve already read. This is unfortunate because the concept is great.

There was also way too much pointless violence. I understand what the author was trying to do, but I don’t think it was executed well. I also do not think that this is the best idea. There are better ways to tackle these issues

(racism/anti-Blackness, police brutality, State violence…)

and spread that message.

Unfortunately, I do not think I will read the second and third book.

PS: The characters were all annoying, except Amari. The romance was horrible. Inan was insufferable. That lady who kept saying his name too.

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osladek's review

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This book was very meh for me. The constant action kept me engaged, but the plot and characters bored me. The magic system and world building were great, but I really didn't feel any connection to the 3 main characters. I was super disturbed by the enemies to lovers in this book and was very happy

that Inan dies and doesn't have a redemption arc because he absolutely did not deserve one after everything

I haven't read YA in a long time and this book reminded me why. The very basic plot that is the practically the same as every other high fantasy did not keep my attention as I always knew what was going to happen. I don't normally mind a basic plot if the worldbuilding and character arcs are worth it. I think these characters suffered from 1 dimensionality which made them not feel like individuals. Amari and Zelie don't seem similar in the beginning, but once they interact with each other and we get their POVs back to back they totally blend together into the same character. I just was not moved by this book. The allegory to police brutality definitely felt powerful and extremely relevant to the modern day prison industrial complex, but not enough to forgive these boring characters and plotline.

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kyrstin_p1989's review

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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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felinedevil's review

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adventurous challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

Make sure to read/listen to the authors note at the end of the novel. There’s an important message written by the author.

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annaparente's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Honestly, I have a lot of thoughts, so I’m going to start with the good and we’ll slowly get into the bad.

The Good

I got this book on sale for THREE DOLLARS!! And it’s a special edition too, with a poster and an annotated chapter and everything. Very nice (and honestly the only reason I bought the book)

The writing was generally very good. Good descriptors, good pacing. I feel like this is often overlooked when critiquing or reviewing a book, but the range of vocabulary was excellent, and it was one of those books where every word was the perfect word for that moment. No half-useful synonyms.

The best books, especially fantasy, take a real world issue and reflect it (differently) into a fictional world. This book did that very well without seeming preachy. The world itself was also very well built, and I enjoyed reading about it.

Overall, I liked the characters.

The (semi)Bad

Honestly, these aren’t major issues. Did they knock the book down an entire star? Yes. But I would still recommend the book, and for the most part I was able to overlook them.

First off: the writing. Yes, I know I said it was good — for the most part, it was. However, it had a very melodramatic quality to it that I just didn’t like. Here’s a quote (page 29:

“The night King Saran hung my people for the world to see, declaring war against the maji of today and tomorrow. The night magic died. [new paragraph] The night we lost everything. [new paragraph]”

And then, on the same page:

“Maybe he would’ve recovered if he hadn’t woken to find Mama’s corpse bound in black chains. But he did. [new paragraph]. He’s never been the same since. [new paragraph]”

Constantly using single-sentence paragraphs to drive a point home or make an impact causes it to completely lose its effect. And in the case of the first quote, if you’re using repetition for emphasis, you don’t also need to add a new paragraph for additional emphasis. The same point would have come across if it were all in the same paragraph. In the case of the second quote, that single-sentence paragraph could have been deleted entirely. It didn’t explain anything that the reader couldn’t deduce for themselves.

Secondly, also in relation to the writing, there were an annoying amount of “Ugh!”’s (written just like that, italics and all). This was a very minor issue and honestly not even a factor in bringing the rating down.

Third, and most important, were the characters. I felt like I could have liked them, but I really just liked their relationships with each other. The melodramatic writing made it really difficult for me to connect with them, like I should be really attached but I wasn’t. Zelie and Amari eventually grew on me, but Inan’s character growth just felt really weak.

I appreciate enemies-to-lovers (Zelie and Inan), but by the end of the book I was really frustrated by their relationship. It just felt really pointless, like it was thrown in there so both siblings of each family could have a love interest (in the bookish community, we call this ‘coupling’).

Fourth: some of the dialogue was very stilted.

Fifth: repeat after me: I cannot kill off a character solely for plot value.

Did you repeat?

Do you understand?

Good.

Now repeat after me again: I will not kill off multiple characters for shock value at various points in the book.

Did the message sink in?

Excellent.

Overall

I’ve seen other reviews say this book was really ‘trope-y’ and yeah, it kind of is. It has moments where it shines really bright, but there are other times where it feels jarringly unoriginal. I want to say it didn’t like up to my expectations, but the book came without a jacket so I really had no expectations. As a whole, I really enjoyed the book, and I would probably recommend it, even with its flaws. However, I read some reviews for the second book and I’m not sure I’ll continue, especially considering the third book hasn’t even come out yet and I have no idea how there’s enough content for this to become a trilogy (considering how much was crammed into this book).

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secondhandbookshelves's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark inspiring sad 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

4.0

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daisy2050's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

annorabrady's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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overthinkereading's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional 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

4.5

So good. Just…so, so good. Honestly, I would have given five stars if I weren’t so sensitive about violence and bloodshed (and CW THERE IS A LOT OF THAT).

Even so, the magic and tension and love (romantic and familial) and history of Orïsha is immersive. Before I even realized it, I found myself completely invested in the characters and their mission, and the cliffhanger ending makes it easy to jump right into book 2 of the series. The Author’s Note is the most powerful part of the book, though - do not skip. (Contains spoilers).

Highly recommend.

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