Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Children of Blood and Bone

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

28 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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charlotteschapter's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

3.5

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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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squinnittowinit's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Edit: After thinking on this book a bit more, I've decided to lower the rating from a 3.75 to a 2. I kept trying to convince myself that this was a good story because I keenly understand the place it was written from, but beyond the bare bones of it, I don't think it actually was. I didn't enjoy the characters and I felt like the plot didn't actually make a whole lot of sense. I've decided that I will not be reading the sequel.

Original review:
Overall, this is a good story with a (unfortunately) very relatable setting: an oppressive society that treats certain people as lesser due to something inherent that they cannot control. I felt the author's pain and anger surrounding this real-world issue in the writing, and perhaps if this had been my first exposure to the mindset of the oppressed group, I might have found it more impactful. However, I personally found it a little tiring for specific reasons that I will mark as a spoiler below.

Again, it is a good story, just one I've seen many times already. Nothing about it surprised me and as much as I was rooting for them, I didn't love any of the characters by the end. I'm not sure if you're supposed to or not.

The specific reasons I found this book to be tiring have a lot to do with the main characters. All three were naive to a fault, and retained that naivete throughout the entire book, even as their views on certain things changed. I suppose it's realistic, as they are all teenagers and teenagers are very naive, but I found it very frustrating to read about them doing impulsive and very ill-advised things over and over again and then only afterwards thinking that they might have been bad ideas.

Next, there is the issue of trauma. This is a book based in racial trauma, which makes it automatically not a fun read for me. Again, I really want to stress that I'm not saying it's bad, but it's very real, and it's hard to laugh at any of the jokes or moments of levity when the whole book is about oppression and I already experience oppression nearly constantly in my real life.

Next, as I said above, nothing about this book surprised me. I was never on the edge of my seat or uncertain about the fate of the characters, because I've seen this story so many times. It hit all the beats I was expecting it to, and the only death I didn't predict was a character that I didn't care about at all.

Finally, the romance. I'm all for a good romantic subplot, but I couldn't get behind this one. It was going for "enemies to lovers" but was done with no subtlety, I felt like I was being bashed over the head with foreshadowing about this relationship. Then, the actual enemies to lovers part happened seemingly overnight, and they suddenly didn't hate each other anymore. The romance gave me some emotional whiplash and made me feel like I was missing time.

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