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A review by brandywoods
Bone Crier's Moon by Kathryn Purdie
3.0
I can’t quite decide how I feel about this book. The lore and worldbuilding (is it just me or are people all of a sudden doing French books? Lol... this, Serpent & Dove...) are really what make me want to hold on to my copy. I love the concept of grace bones, and the whole shamanic/psychopomp aspect of ferrying the dead... but the actual characters & story? Less so.
A few things feel... “missing”. Like the editing wasn’t 100% up to snuff. Eg, when Sabine confronts Odiva and pretends the jackal bone is from a black wolf. At least, I assume that based on following dialogue. Since in the text she just says it’s her third grace bone and no animal at all is specified. Again, at the underground bridge, when she says she didn’t have enough time to come to hate her... which directly contrasts her saying she hated her when she spied on the ritual in her room.
Given that the first chapter opens on Sabine’s POV, one sort of expects Sabine to be the MC, but really, it feels like Ailesse is, more than anyone. (Yes, even cycling through Bastien and Sabine and Ailesse, it feels like the other two are there merely to round out perspectives and show parts of the story while Ailesse is basically sitting around unable to act, for various reasons.)
The ending, a “cliffhanger”, feels much less like a cliffhanger than they cut the story in half in the middle because the page count was too unwieldy for YA.
In the end... I dunno. 4 stars for the lore and worldbuilding. 2.5 for the rest. And 10/10 for Charlie Bowater’s cover art. Gaaah, I almost want to keep it just for the cover. XD
A few things feel... “missing”. Like the editing wasn’t 100% up to snuff. Eg, when Sabine confronts Odiva and pretends the jackal bone is from a black wolf. At least, I assume that based on following dialogue. Since in the text she just says it’s her third grace bone and no animal at all is specified. Again, at the underground bridge, when she says she didn’t have enough time to come to hate her... which directly contrasts her saying she hated her when she spied on the ritual in her room.
Given that the first chapter opens on Sabine’s POV, one sort of expects Sabine to be the MC, but really, it feels like Ailesse is, more than anyone. (Yes, even cycling through Bastien and Sabine and Ailesse, it feels like the other two are there merely to round out perspectives and show parts of the story while Ailesse is basically sitting around unable to act, for various reasons.)
The ending, a “cliffhanger”, feels much less like a cliffhanger than they cut the story in half in the middle because the page count was too unwieldy for YA.
In the end... I dunno. 4 stars for the lore and worldbuilding. 2.5 for the rest. And 10/10 for Charlie Bowater’s cover art. Gaaah, I almost want to keep it just for the cover. XD