Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
My Rating: ★★★★ 1/2
‘You crushed us to build your monarchy on the backs of our blood and bone. Your mistake wasn’t keeping us alive. It was thinking we’d never fight back!’
Wow. This book has certainly taken the bookish world by storm, and for good reason. I can state confidently that the hype surrounding this is fully deserved, and that this is going to go down as one of the best books of the year by far.
The book follows Zélie, a courageous young diviner suffering the loss of a parent and a culture. We follow her on a mission, to bring magic back to her world after the oppression of her people by the current ruler, and together with her brother, and some unexpected travelling companions Zélie sets out to return her world to its former glory, to the world she knew and loved.
Needless to say, I reallllly enjoyed this book. The characters were well written and well developed (which is a godsend) especially Amari, who I actually thought went through one of the biggest character arcs throughout the book. Honestly, I could have done without the romances that develop, but they weren’t shoved in my face either so it wasn’t TOO bad. The girls were strong and independent, which made this book a kick-ass story and just really got the imagination hooked.
The concept of the diviners and maji was fresh and amazing, one of my favourite fictional cultures actually (I’d be a Burner I think) and gave off a sort of Avatar vibe I felt (and in ‘The Last Air-bender’, not the tall blue people).
The magic was also exceptionally well written. You can tell if a person hasn’t really thought much about the way their fictional magic is going to work, and in reading this book you get the sense that the author thought hard about the characteristics of this form of magic, I really liked it.
The standout part of this however, is by far the world building, a thought that has been commented on by almost every review I’ve read, and if you read it, you’ll see why. The world building in this book is just awesome, it’s mind-blowing. So detailed, so intricate, and so well thought out, it really brings the book to life, and was one of the best books I’ve read in terms of generating imagery whilst you read.
You may have noticed that I knocked half a star off this rating, and that’s down to a few very MINOR and very PERSONAL opinions. Firstly I spotted a few tiny little plot holes which just kind of stopped the flow for me, but one of the main things I had wrong with this book is that the characters say ‘Ugh’ A LOT. I know it seems picky but it did really begin to annoy me the further through the book I got, and I feel like there must be some other ways to convey pain than just ‘ugh’ every time some discomfort is felt. No disrespect to the author of course, she’s written an incredible book and I certainly couldn’t have done it.
Like I said these are INCREDIBLY MINOR DETAILS and just personal opinions, which if I’m honest are far eclipsed by the rest of the book.
So how do I sum this up? It’s an amazing read, and I would make a plea here to anyone reading this, PLEASE do not miss out on this book, I promise you’ll regret it. There’s a reason there is so much hype around it, and it’s thoroughly deserved hype. In my opinion it’s easily one of the best books of the year, and is going to be a favourite of the book community’s for a very VERY long time.
Feel free to let me know what you thought, I always like to say hi to people so don’t be afraid. All opinions welcome xx
Until Next Time x
The Little Book Blog 