Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

20 reviews

spacecadelliot's review

adventurous 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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Genocide, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Torture, and Violence

leyza052's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious 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

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Animal death

Minor: Sexual violence

sarah984's review against another edition

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.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Torture, Slavery, Police brutality, Physical abuse, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, and Self harm

Minor: Infidelity, Vomit, Trafficking, and Sexual content

oliverreeds's review

adventurous dark tense 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? Yes

4.75

everything i wrote was deleted. i spent 15 minutes on this review. the short and skinny since i won’t be rewriting it: the characters are waffle-y

looking at you, inan and you zeili

i also just realized i’ve done ever spoiler up until this point wrong. the romances should have been gay 

looking at YOU zeili and amari bc the straight romances have. no. chemistry. at. all.

and lastly i was confused on a plot point which could have been my fault

the raid was only like ten years ago and that’s when magic went away when king whoever interrupted a ritual but this ritual only occurs every hundred years and it’s coming up agajn after only ten… maybe i misread though

anyways good book but should have been gayer

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, and Panic attacks/disorders

scribblerrva's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

This was a great book from beginning to end. The only reason I didn’t give it the full 5 is because only 3 of the 4 central characters had their side of the story told. Other than that, it was a well-written and engaging read.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Kidnapping

Minor: Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, and Torture

battybookworm's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad 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? Yes

4.5

This was a book I've had on my shelves forever, and once I actually got over the hurdle of starting it, I could not put it down. This giant book came with me everywhere and it was very fun to read. I loved Zelie and Amari's chapters, and even Inan after a period. I think the author did the separation of their voices incredibly well and the characters' shifts and growth were developed and lovely to read. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Toxic relationship, Slavery, Sexual content, and Self harm

britt's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad tense 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? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime

Moderate: Torture, Slavery, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Blood, Child death, and Child abuse

angelinepro's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Xenophobia, Torture, Murder, Grief, Gore, and Genocide

sheryl_macca's review

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I chose this book to tick off the Afrofuturism prompt of the Reading Women Challenge 2020. I hadn't heard of Afrofuturism before and even after reading a little about it I wasn't sure I fully grasped the concept.

Children of Blood and Bone is the story of a quest to return magic to Orisha, to right the generations of injustice that have gone before, to unite the people and share power. 

It's told through 4 points of view and I do love multiple POVs but in this book it didn't work as well for me as it usually does. The book is full off emotion, history and chaos. There are clearly comparisons to be made with apartide, segregation, institutional racism and the events which recently led to the BLM protests. There are powerful emotions around the coming of age, discovering your inner strength, testing yourself, trust and responsibility. There are first loves, family connections, grief and challenges of belonging. I wanted deeper more insightful narrators to really explore all of these themes and I found that each chapter was too short to accomplish this. I was hopping from one narrator to the next too quickly.

Having said that, it's a wonderful world that has been created and there's an interesting timelessness to the story. The adventure just keeps on coming, on land and on water. It's a great work of fantasy  but it missed the mark on the feels.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, and Violence

brynn_books's review

4.0

*4.5 Stars⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

So, I loved this book!! I was afraid to read it because of how much it was hyped up last year and I chose to wait until some of the hype had died down until I read it. That and I’m just lazy and took forever to actually pick up a copy.

This is an epic fantasy that is literally any fantasy lovers dream. As someone who loves fantasy, I loved the magic system in this book and the whole world, how it worked was definitely my favorite thing about the book.

I also loved the characters. Zélie and Amari are so powerful and fierce and seeing their friendship grow from the start of the book to the end of the book was so beautiful. I loved seeing Amari stand up against her father and actually choose to help Zélie who her father hates. 

I’m bad at critiquing books, but I think if I did critique this book, the one critique I would have, which is pretty minor, would be the romance between Zélie and Inan. I don’t know if anyone else felt this, but it felt a bit rushed. Like, I love the whole enemies-to-lovers trope which is what I think this relationship was supposed to be but I wish it was dragged out a little bit more. It felt like, they were enemies one day and then the very next day, they were having their first kiss and it was just like really fast. I don’t know. I wish it was dragged out throughout the whole book rather than just a few chapters of them fighting to kill each other and then ending up kissing. 

But besides that, I love this book and I’m really excited for the sequel!!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Animal death, Slavery, Blood, Violence, and Racism