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A review by lunaballz
The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley
3.0
I really wanted to like this and it started off good, but it was a struggle to finish it.
Characters: There's almost no character development. The side characters never even get enough development for them to have personality and for me to care about them, they just feel like placeholders for plot points. Iris wants to protect them or is upset by something one of them says and I just think "why? why does she care about these people she barely knows?
Romance: it's...not good. It's not actually a love-triangle as the author was going for a reverse harem trope, so instead every man is in love with Iris, and again I'm asking why? The only one that seems like he has a chance is her acrobatic partner because there's history there, but there's definitely not any chemistry because even he gets no character development and I know almost nothing about him except that he's in love with her.
The two other guys: one is a new guy who joins the gang and is apparently in love with her (but WHY?) but there's zero chemistry there and honestly it would've been better if all his jokes about loving her had really been jokes. The last guy is just creepy and is more in love with the idea of her than her.
Plot: the concept is good, but the pacing spoils it a bit. It's just way too long of a book for what happens in it. It starts off interesting and quick but the middle quickly becomes a slog
All in all, it had great potential and I love how the author incorporated the racial problems of the time and that almost everyone is characters of color but because of the slow pacing and bad character development I only spite finished this and probably won't be reading the sequels.
Characters: There's almost no character development. The side characters never even get enough development for them to have personality and for me to care about them, they just feel like placeholders for plot points. Iris wants to protect them or is upset by something one of them says and I just think "why? why does she care about these people she barely knows?
Romance: it's...not good. It's not actually a love-triangle as the author was going for a reverse harem trope, so instead every man is in love with Iris, and again I'm asking why? The only one that seems like he has a chance is her acrobatic partner because there's history there, but there's definitely not any chemistry because even he gets no character development and I know almost nothing about him except that he's in love with her.
The two other guys: one is a new guy who joins the gang and is apparently in love with her (but WHY?) but there's zero chemistry there and honestly it would've been better if all his jokes about loving her had really been jokes. The last guy is just creepy and is more in love with the idea of her than her.
Plot: the concept is good, but the pacing spoils it a bit. It's just way too long of a book for what happens in it. It starts off interesting and quick but the middle quickly becomes a slog
All in all, it had great potential and I love how the author incorporated the racial problems of the time and that almost everyone is characters of color but because of the slow pacing and bad character development I only spite finished this and probably won't be reading the sequels.