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A review by wooblatoober
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
loved it! i loved kingfisher’s imagery. not only her talent for making me see what she imagined, but the things she imagined in the first place. over time, i’ve fallen out of love with fantasy as a genre. kingfisher included elements that reminded me how much i used to love it, & introduced new elements that i enjoyed reading immensely. tl;dr, a fresh & delightful spin on dark fantasy.
i LOVED the main character. kingfisher does an amazing job of making her a bit dull without making the ready angry at the MC for her stupidity. she’s just believably stupid, i guess, & catches onto things in much the same manner & speed i find myself catching onto things in real life. i love the personalities of most the characters, actually, especially agnes & the dust-wife,and quite wished they ended up in love in the end.
LOVED that the cast of characters was mostly women, with few named male characters. i’m all for books with a balanced cast, but also love to see a book doing the opposite of what books have been doing for so long. i also loved kingfisher’s body type diversity and age diversity.
i wish this book had a more diverse cast of characters along other lines—not much to hang onto regarding race/ethnicity & different abilities, & a nonbinary character is introduced briefly for seemingly no other reason than to say they were there.
spoilers ahead for anyone who reads a book with a dog and immediately worries about the fate of the dog:
in the beginning, marra creates a dog out of bone, so the dog is already dead & you never see its death. bonedog does not know he was ever dead. at the end of the book, bonedog is defending a character, and is attacked by a guard, and he “dies,” his bones scattering apart. none of the characters have time to mourn him in the craziness, since it’s the climax of the story, and marra ends up getting his bones back and putting him back together, so he comes back at the end. i would say that the dog does NOT die.
i LOVED the main character. kingfisher does an amazing job of making her a bit dull without making the ready angry at the MC for her stupidity. she’s just believably stupid, i guess, & catches onto things in much the same manner & speed i find myself catching onto things in real life. i love the personalities of most the characters, actually, especially agnes & the dust-wife,
LOVED that the cast of characters was mostly women, with few named male characters. i’m all for books with a balanced cast, but also love to see a book doing the opposite of what books have been doing for so long. i also loved kingfisher’s body type diversity and age diversity.
i wish this book had a more diverse cast of characters along other lines—not much to hang onto regarding race/ethnicity & different abilities, & a nonbinary character is introduced briefly for seemingly no other reason than to say they were there.
spoilers ahead for anyone who reads a book with a dog and immediately worries about the fate of the dog:
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy