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A review by bergelicious818
Song of Blood & Stone by L. Penelope
4.0
Thank you to St. Martin's Press for providing me with a ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Trigger Warning for the book itself: Racism, Discrimination, allusions to rape/sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, war, graphic sex scenes (think ACOMAF)
Leslye Penelope (L. Penelope) has her YA debut with Song of Blood and Stone, the first book in the Earthsinger Chronicles. Marketed as an historical fiction book with aspects of Romeo and Julliet, Lord of the Rings and world building reminiscent of Brandon Sanderson, I had no idea what to expect from this book. I knew that the cover was absolutely beautiful, but beyond that, my expectations were a bit confusing. Luckily for me, this book was actually pretty good!
The story follows Jasminda, a half Lagrimari, half Elsiran Earthsinger living life in Elsira. The Lagrimari people are dark skinned (for all intents and purposes, they're black) and posses Earthsong, which is this worlds form of magic. It's an incredibly pure form of magic stemming directly from the earth itself, it can build mountains, make fields fertile for farming, change the weather, and, most importantly, cannot be used directly to kill. The Lagrimari are ruled by the True Father, a dictator who steals the Earthsong of his people and uses it to bolster his power. As a result, Lagrimari people have been fleeing from Lagrimar and the True Father to become refugees in Elsira. Elsiran people are silent, meaning they have no Earthsong, and are light of skin, hair and eyes.
This is where everything gets really good. L. Penelope, being a black women, was able to masterfully interject the everyday reality of black people and refugees into this fantasy book. The Elsirans have a tendency to be racist and xenophobic, blaming all of their countries problems on the rising population of Lagrimari refugees, who are kept in refugee camps and villages away from the regular Elsiran towns. The refugees are seen as savages, as animals and are treated as such. They are constantly mistreated and discriminated against by the military and the townsfolk they live near. The Elsiran's even have a racial slur for the Lagrimari, grol witches. So the world building aspect of this book gets full marks from me!
As a mixed woman of a similar racial decent at Jasminda (black and white), I found L. Penelope's portrayal of "mixedness" to be spot on. Jasminda often states in the story that she belongs nowhere. She is too dark, to Lagrimari, for the Elsiran's to consider her one of their own, and she has never lived in Lagrimar, so she is in turn, too white, too Elsiran to fit in with the Lagrimari people. That is the constant daily struggle of those with mixed racial heritage, especially those with African American and Caucasian parentage like myself. As a result, I found myself really relating with Jasminda's character. She felt incredibly real and raw, and I absolutely loved it. The other thing I really loved was how her magic fit into the story. She (thank god) was not the most powerful Earthsinger ever in existence ever. I hate that trope, so it was really nice to see that the heroine of the story was considered weak when it came to magic. She had nowhere near the amount of Earthsong that many of the other side characters had, and it caused her to go about things in a way that would've been different if she had been more powerful.
As for the romances in the story, I did like that there was interracial and same-sex relationships featured and/or mentioned in the story, and also appreciated the fact that she attached real stigmas of both types of relationships into her story as well. Again, it made the story feel more relevant and current. The main romance, between Jasminda and Jack, was unbelievably predictable and unfortunately was very much instalove. In my opinion, it definitely took something away from the book for me, because I hate instant love, but, it didn't ruin the story for me like it usually does. I think that was because it is marketed as having a Romeo and Juliet type romance, and who has more instalove and instainfactuation than those two? Going in having that expectation lessened the blow for me, but it was still unfortunate. I did appreciate a few things about it though. Jack is an Elsiran, and he didn't even blink twice at the fact that Jasminda was Lagrimari. He knew he loved her, regardless of skin color, heritage or Earthsong, he loved her and that was all that mattered, even in the face of discrimination, and I thought that was beautiful. Also, the fact that, even though Jasminda was suddenly like super in to Jack, she didn't lose herself entirely in him. Her every waking thought was not of Jack (though towards the end, it began to get to that point).
The plot was again, fairly predictable in many spots, though I was happy to find that there were some parts that thew me for a loop and caught me off my guard. The writing was very easy to understand and follow, not a ton of loopy, flowy prose or fluffy metaphors, which I actually enjoyed because I been noticing that a lot of authors these days are getting lost in those and overusing them. When L. Penelope did decide to throw something like that in there, you noticed, and it marked it as important.
All in all, this book was really great! I don't really see how it's a historical fiction...it feels like straight fantasy to me but I digress. I thought the world building was SPECTACULAR! The representation was amazing and I thought that the way L. Penelope wove in modern issues made the book feel more current and relevant. The romance wasn't my favorite, but it had some really great aspects that I appreciated. I though the writing style was nice and easy to follow, but the plot could be predictable at times. I'm interested to see what the next book will bring.