A review by entazis
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

adventurous dark mysterious medium-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

5.0

I listened to this in a few days, having so much fun. This world is fascinating, the concept of migrating islands and the way bone shard magic and constructs are explained giving us some terrifying images and situations. This is not a horror novel, but I will say that I find the constructs unnerving. If you've read T. Kingfisher's The Twisted Ones it's like whole bunch of effigies just used in everyday life as servants of the empire.

The story explores the ideas of free will, identity and agency. It also talks about corrupt governments and revolutions. Of loneliness and grief. It plays with old tropes (the smuggler, the missing wife, the mad scientist who is also a tyrant, the princess in the tower) and gives us something new which I specifically liked. And while I guessed something important from the beginning, the way character came to the answers was fun, giving us important worldbuilding blocks, and there was still something that managed to surprise me.

All in all, a lot of fun with a weird world where constructs of dead animal bodies walk around governing people.
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