Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Children of Blood and Bone: Seer Edition by Tomi Adeyemi

107 reviews

mrs_bastos's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

3.75

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lermaline's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring 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

4.75

J'avais hâte de me plonger dans De sang et de rage dont j'avais beaucoup entendu parler sous son titre en anglais, Children of Blood and Bone de Tomi Adeyemi. J'avoue avoir toujours été impressionnée par la couverture qu'une fois (digitalement) tournée je n'ai presque pas refermée, captivée par les aventures de Zélie. Lu en français, je savais que le public cible du livre se situait dans une tranche d'âge inférieure à la mienne, particulièrement pour les enfants à partir de 14 ans. J'ai donc adapté mes attentes avant de me lancer (relation amoureuse entre ados non-explicite, recherche d'identité, affirmation de soi, indépendance face à ses parents et d'autres formes d'autorité et/ou de pouvoir, rébellion contre l'injustice). Cet ouvrage se lit très rapidement grâce à des chapitres courts alternant les points de vue de presque tous les personnages principaux, Zélie, Amari et Inan dans un pays et une culture inspirés du Nigéria. Les thèmes abordés sont lourds et actuels : le roi régnant qui dirige sans pitié Orïsha a commis un génocide envers les membres magiques de son peuple et a éteint à sa source la magie elle-même, a asservi, exploité et terrorise encore les familles endeuillées à jamais amputées de leurs proches, forcés à revivre encore et encore les souvenirs de ces assassinats par les forces armées royales. Vivre dans Orïsha est dangereux, il faut savoir s'y défendre si l'on ne veut pas être anéanti, et parfois ce n'est pas suffisant. J'ai particulièrement apprécié les descriptions du système de déités et des pouvoirs magiques, des villes et paysages ainsi que les animaux compagnons géants. J'ai peut-être remarqué un peu tard les parallèles évidents avec Avatar (Derniers Maîtres de l'Air) sans en être dérangée puisque j'aime énormément cette série.

J'aurais aimé passer plus de temps avec certains personnages (dans le village des maji), avoir le point de vue de Tzain, approfondir la relation avec la mère de Zélie et Tzain, voir un rapprochement avec Amari et lui, voire même Amari et Zélie, approfondir les conflits sociaux et politiques dans Orïsha.
Evidemment la fin ne dupe pas le vieux loup de mer de fantasy que je suis, et tant que l'on a pas vu et confirmé en détail la mort d'Inan, je reste persuadée de le retrouver dans le prochain livre.

Dans l'ensemble, je suis heureuse d'avoir lu cet ouvrage et le recommande autour de moi.

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michelejenn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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bookishperseus's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad 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

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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.

Content Warnings

eternallyunsatisfied's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

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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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annaparente's review against another edition

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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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asiamh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.0

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micaelamariem's review against another edition

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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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