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A review by nico1000
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
3.0
So it's this and [b:The Hate U Give|34530151|The Hate U Give|Angie Thomas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1489227263s/34530151.jpg|49638190] bringing the tally to two books now with a Black Lives Matter theme... and I feel like the intent behind the creation is good but I can't help at squint at people who sit, watch the news, see a murder and think, I'mma write a novel. People write about issues and racism and slavery all the time but this just feels weird to me.
I mean, no one really needs educating as to why oppression, prejudice and oppression is wrong. This is 2018. There are no neo-nazis who are going to stumble across this in their local library, read it to completion and have a change of heart. And if you're on the other side of it, I feel like some magic story of gods and goddesses and magical things that must be found by the end of the book, just make you think, "Okay, I guess."
I don't know, this author and [a:Angie Thomas|15049422|Angie Thomas|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1471998209p2/15049422.jpg] could be donating all their profits to activist charities or black communities in need... IDK.
It's not massively good, but it's better than a lot of stuff out there. A little bit predictable, but I don't think originality was the focus here so I feel like it should get extra points for avoiding some of the more grievous clichés of the genre. Either the lady has her storytelling down or she's simply not read a lot of epic fantasy or YA lit to get corrupted by the trendy pitfalls other authors dive right into.
I don't know.
I'm from Trinidad, the religion is big over here. Not big big, but big enough. I'm not part of it, but I've grown up with it and I can't really think of an actual practitioner who'd feel like this was respectful to their religion. If you've never seen or heard of Orisha, Shango, Spiritual Baptist, you might be able to immerse yourself in this, but otherwise, it's just disconcerting af to see a real religion reduced to a magic system in a YA fantasy novel.
It's like if JK Rowling wrote a book called Harry Potter and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
So that's my review: I am confused. Orisha people exist in real life. It's not some ancient, dead mythology that you can use all willy-nilly, imo.
I mean, no one really needs educating as to why oppression, prejudice and oppression is wrong. This is 2018. There are no neo-nazis who are going to stumble across this in their local library, read it to completion and have a change of heart. And if you're on the other side of it, I feel like some magic story of gods and goddesses and magical things that must be found by the end of the book, just make you think, "Okay, I guess."
I don't know, this author and [a:Angie Thomas|15049422|Angie Thomas|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1471998209p2/15049422.jpg] could be donating all their profits to activist charities or black communities in need... IDK.
It's not massively good, but it's better than a lot of stuff out there. A little bit predictable, but I don't think originality was the focus here so I feel like it should get extra points for avoiding some of the more grievous clichés of the genre. Either the lady has her storytelling down or she's simply not read a lot of epic fantasy or YA lit to get corrupted by the trendy pitfalls other authors dive right into.
I don't know.
I'm from Trinidad, the religion is big over here. Not big big, but big enough. I'm not part of it, but I've grown up with it and I can't really think of an actual practitioner who'd feel like this was respectful to their religion. If you've never seen or heard of Orisha, Shango, Spiritual Baptist, you might be able to immerse yourself in this, but otherwise, it's just disconcerting af to see a real religion reduced to a magic system in a YA fantasy novel.
It's like if JK Rowling wrote a book called Harry Potter and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
So that's my review: I am confused. Orisha people exist in real life. It's not some ancient, dead mythology that you can use all willy-nilly, imo.