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A review by carlyxdeexx
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
4.0
I know people who think this book is The Best™️ and brilliant and wonderful, and I know people who felt overall meh about it after hearing all the hype.
I’m somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed reading it overall, and I’m thrilled to see more fantasy that isn’t dominated by white characters and doesn’t draw on European cultures when building its lore—we definitely need to see more of that. I like the world Adeyemi built and its magic system, as well as the complexity of its moral struggle. We are forced to examine this society beyond its blatant dichotomy of the oppressors/the oppressed. The power of magic in a world in which both magic and non-magic people exist is frightening—Adeyemi intends for us to understand that fear as much as we understand the injustices committed against the diviners. How do you fix a world, a society, that is so thoroughly broken by hatred and fear? When, if ever, is violence part of the answer, and what’s the rest of that answer?
I like that Adeyemi acknowledges that violence can be necessary for survival, and that she explores characters with very different ideas of what comes after the violence, how to establish peace after war. Curiosity about how this theme will be resolved is what’s really got me wanting to read book two.
I can’t say this reminded me a LOT of AtLA—the only thing that was really evocative of that for me was our dear Prince Zuko surrogate, and even he was not particularly on an arc that matched Zuko’s in many ways. I would argue Zuko is given much more time to grow, to his story’s advantage, whereas the story here doesn’t take place over as long a time, so the growth process here is much faster and a bit less believable. Not in the sense that we doubt any change is occurring, but in the sense that the process doesn’t seem as authentic.
Which leads into the thing that irked me most about this book: there were just more than a few instances while reading when I just didn’t quite believe in the dialogue, in these characters. Something about them felt a bit distant, a little canned. There wasn’t a point in the book when I really felt connected to Zelie, to Amari, or to Inan. There is an impossible amount of suffering in this YA book, an incalculable amount of trauma, and this was made very clear, but even when inside characters’ heads, knowing their thoughts, I didn’t relate to them as closely as I did while reading, say, Jemisin’s THE FIFTH SEASON or Bardugo’s SIX OF CROWS. I mean, I’m a sucker for love stories, but the romance explored in this book didn’t seem to actually reach the depth it was supposed to for me. And there was definite potential there.
I do give Adeyemi props for her dedication to her characters’ traumas and her depiction of its effects, though Bardugo is still my absolute favorite author in terms of leaning completely into her characters’ flaws, traumas, and complexities. I appreciated that not everything in this book went perfectly well. The journey was messy, a true struggle for everyone involved, and I often got the sense that things went wrong in ways I didn’t quite expect them to, like in life, which was affecting. I will definitely be reading the second installment, and I give this one a 3.5, on the nose.
Also. I appreciate that Adeyemi is a bold BTS fan. I stan AKMU and MAMAMOO myself, but I appreciate you, fellow KPop enthusiast. 👌🏼
I’m somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed reading it overall, and I’m thrilled to see more fantasy that isn’t dominated by white characters and doesn’t draw on European cultures when building its lore—we definitely need to see more of that. I like the world Adeyemi built and its magic system, as well as the complexity of its moral struggle. We are forced to examine this society beyond its blatant dichotomy of the oppressors/the oppressed. The power of magic in a world in which both magic and non-magic people exist is frightening—Adeyemi intends for us to understand that fear as much as we understand the injustices committed against the diviners. How do you fix a world, a society, that is so thoroughly broken by hatred and fear? When, if ever, is violence part of the answer, and what’s the rest of that answer?
I like that Adeyemi acknowledges that violence can be necessary for survival, and that she explores characters with very different ideas of what comes after the violence, how to establish peace after war. Curiosity about how this theme will be resolved is what’s really got me wanting to read book two.
I can’t say this reminded me a LOT of AtLA—the only thing that was really evocative of that for me was our dear Prince Zuko surrogate, and even he was not particularly on an arc that matched Zuko’s in many ways. I would argue Zuko is given much more time to grow, to his story’s advantage, whereas the story here doesn’t take place over as long a time, so the growth process here is much faster and a bit less believable. Not in the sense that we doubt any change is occurring, but in the sense that the process doesn’t seem as authentic.
Which leads into the thing that irked me most about this book: there were just more than a few instances while reading when I just didn’t quite believe in the dialogue, in these characters. Something about them felt a bit distant, a little canned. There wasn’t a point in the book when I really felt connected to Zelie, to Amari, or to Inan. There is an impossible amount of suffering in this YA book, an incalculable amount of trauma, and this was made very clear, but even when inside characters’ heads, knowing their thoughts, I didn’t relate to them as closely as I did while reading, say, Jemisin’s THE FIFTH SEASON or Bardugo’s SIX OF CROWS. I mean, I’m a sucker for love stories, but the romance explored in this book didn’t seem to actually reach the depth it was supposed to for me. And there was definite potential there.
I do give Adeyemi props for her dedication to her characters’ traumas and her depiction of its effects, though Bardugo is still my absolute favorite author in terms of leaning completely into her characters’ flaws, traumas, and complexities. I appreciated that not everything in this book went perfectly well. The journey was messy, a true struggle for everyone involved, and I often got the sense that things went wrong in ways I didn’t quite expect them to, like in life, which was affecting. I will definitely be reading the second installment, and I give this one a 3.5, on the nose.
Also. I appreciate that Adeyemi is a bold BTS fan. I stan AKMU and MAMAMOO myself, but I appreciate you, fellow KPop enthusiast. 👌🏼