A review by aweekinthelife
Speaking Bones by Ken Liu

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

wow, what an end to the saga. i wasn't quite sold on the series from the previous three books and this was by far my favorite, although i suppose i only felt that way because of all the investment i've put into the series from book 1 til now and made all the earlier books more worth it. 

i enjoyed the discussions of culture and language, especially the continuous conversations around oral versus written cultures as the people of Dara encounter oral cultures such as the Lyucu, Agon, and Tan Adü. i also appreciated the conversations about reparations and what it would mean to have Lyucu and Dara people coexisting together after all the harm that had been enacted.

some favorite quotes: 

what did "authentic" mean anyway when it came to defining what it meant to be Adüan? sure, the storyteller no longer lived in Tan Adü, but neither did she. the storyteller couldn't possibly know what life was like in every village in Tan Adü, but neither could she. so what right did she have, any more than the "professional Adüans," to authoritatively declare what it meant to be Adüan? to dictate how the people of Dara perceived her people?

- zen-kara (ch 21; pg 330)

this was the mortal condition, she realized. she would never know with certainty the right path; she would never experience enough to act with absolute conviction; she would never be able to eliminate all suffering 

(ch 31; pg 613)

How should history judge him? One's conclusion changes depending on one's perspective, just as the arguments of the litigators before the magistrate shift based on who pays the bill. And since no one is paying my bill in this case, I will offer no opinion.