Friday, March 23, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi




Children of Blood and Bone has to be one of the most popular/hyped books I've ever reviewed on this blog (after maybe The Stone Sky I guess, but that's more niche) - it debuted in its first week after publication as #1 on the New York Times YA Bestseller list.  A Fantasy YA Novel based on African mythology, this is the first in a trilogy that already had its movie rights optioned before the book had even been finished.  Which of course isn't a guaranty of quality, especially for a first novel from a brand new author.

But I liked Children of Blood and Bone a bunch.  It's far from perfect - it's probably a bit too long and definitely could use some editing - but it's a very solid start to a new trilogy, with some very interesting characters and some excellent worldbuilding.  I also was happy to see that, while the book does have a mild cliffhanger, it works very well as its own complete story.  I expected to get through this book in 3 days, and managed to do so in 2, which is a pretty good sign of me enjoying it, and while I wouldn't necessarily rate it among my favorite books of 2018, I'm definitely interested in where it's going from here.

More after the Jump:


--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------
In the land of Orisha, the Gods granted certain people, identified by white in their hair, the powers of magic.  Each god granted a different magic, with powers ranging from the calling of fire (burners), to dealing with and using dead spirits (reapers), to magical healers.  The people with the potential to use the magic were known as Diviners, and the actual users of magic were known as the Maji and their skin was darker than the other Orishans.  The nobles and royalty of the land feared the Maji and their powers.

And then one day, ten years ago, the magic disappeared.  It was followed by The Raid - a slaughtering purge led by the Orishan King Saran, which murdered all the Maji and many Diviners.  And since that time, the Diviners have been treated as second class citizens - subject to additional taxes and cruelties, called "Maggots" to their faces, and not allowed any freedoms.

Zelie's mother was a Maji - a reaper - cut down in the Raid.  She is a diviner, although her father and brother are not, and she wants nothing more than to fight back.  And when Saran's daughter, the princess Amari, flees the palace with a Scroll that can restore magic to Diviners and Zelie is shown a vision of her, Amari, and her brother, Tzain, going on a quest to restore the land's magic, she jumps at the chance.  She can give her people the chance to fight back by restoring the land's magic, and save her father and brother...as well as her people.

But Zelie is being pursued by Amari's brother Inan, who seeks to return Amari to the palace and obtain the scroll.  Inan however, has a secret: while he was instilled with the belief from his father that magic was too dangerous to exist and that its existence would cause nothing but death and destruction, he has magical powers himself that were awakened by contact with the scroll.  Conflicted by his teachings and by the powers he hates within him, he and Zelie find themselves drawn together.....and the result will change Orisha forever.
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Children of Blood and Bone is split into 80+ chapters (yes, 80+, so some are very short), with each one being written from the point of view of three of our four main characters: Zelie (who gets the bulk of the story), Amari, and Inan.  For the most part, these characters are very well done, with both Zelie's and Inan's drives and conflicts seeming natural and well written.  That said, both characters' probably go back and forth on their desires a bit too much for my liking - I've seen one review suggest that this is natural for teenage characters, and maybe that's true, but it still felt a bit like their wavering convictions at times felt off and pointless and could have been reduced to make a tighter novel.

Amari is easily the most conventional character in the book - her plotline is simple and the most unoriginal: She's the princess who doesn't realize how bad things have been for the lower class (the Diviners), who wants to change things and act against her father, but is scared to fight directly for herself and must find the courage to do so (Guess what she does by the end of the book!).  She could have been taken straight from another book, honestly.  And yet, the simplicity of her character arc actually made me like her more than Zelie - sometimes these tropes work for a reason.

Oddly the fourth main character, Tzain, never gets a point of view, and just sort of tags along with the others, and his reactions are only seen from the perspectives of the other three.  The story doesn't need his input, but it just felt kind of weird for him to be so omnipresent while never getting to experience his thoughts and internal conflict directly.

The worldbuilding is also in general excellent, taking us far and wide through this new land.  The magic is intriguing where explored, and while the plot is predictable in beats, it has enough surprises to intrigue.  And while I felt the book was too long at times, I was generally always interested in reading the next chapter (hence me blowing through the book in 2 days instead of 3-4), which is a good sign for its pacing.  And while the ending does have a cliffhanger/sequel-hook element, it is a satisfying wrap up to this opener of the trilogy, leaving me interested in the next book without making me feel unsatisfied by the effort to read this one.

There are some other issues with the book besides what I highlight above.  The book seems to try for small bits on rationalizing the behavior of the main antagonist, but for the most part he's just one-dimensional and evil and cruel, which makes that kind of a waste.  This wouldn't be that big of a problem, except that Inan is supposed to be wavering between sides (the primary antagonist being his father), and it's hard not to want to yell at him when you see how clearly his father is evil, and so Inan's story, particularly his ending, didn't really work for me - Inan's story and conflict is essentially that of a man born from privilege discovering he might lose that privilege at any moment and trying to rationalize away his prior actions and find a path forwards without rejecting his teachings....but when those priors are so blatantly evil, it's kind of hard to feel the conflict as he learns more (There's one sequence in the final third where Inan is confronted by his father's evil so blatantly that it seems bizarre given his prior characterization that any conflict is left after that at all and yet.....without spoiling, he goes in a different direction that is pretty hard to believe).

The book also introduces a side character about 60% of the way through who plays a part in the final sequence who didn't work at all and felt way too much like a plot device (getting the characters from Point A to Point B) than he should have.  If the sequel picks up right after this book left off (not a given), he might become a more relevant character, but he was significant enough in this one to be kind of annoying in how little depth he had.

Overall though, this is an excellent start to a new fantasy trilogy, especially one that isn't from a typical White European culture and that deals with themes of fighting against oppression and power.  Will be looking for the sequel whenever that comes out.
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