Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

74 reviews

eternallyunsatisfied's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Stunning. This book is about taking back your power and embracing your magic. It’s well-written, interesting, and powerful. The chapters are short, the characters are interesting, and the plot is exciting.

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annaparente's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Honestly, I have a lot of thoughts, so I’m going to start with the good and we’ll slowly get into the bad.

The Good

I got this book on sale for THREE DOLLARS!! And it’s a special edition too, with a poster and an annotated chapter and everything. Very nice (and honestly the only reason I bought the book)

The writing was generally very good. Good descriptors, good pacing. I feel like this is often overlooked when critiquing or reviewing a book, but the range of vocabulary was excellent, and it was one of those books where every word was the perfect word for that moment. No half-useful synonyms.

The best books, especially fantasy, take a real world issue and reflect it (differently) into a fictional world. This book did that very well without seeming preachy. The world itself was also very well built, and I enjoyed reading about it.

Overall, I liked the characters.

The (semi)Bad

Honestly, these aren’t major issues. Did they knock the book down an entire star? Yes. But I would still recommend the book, and for the most part I was able to overlook them.

First off: the writing. Yes, I know I said it was good — for the most part, it was. However, it had a very melodramatic quality to it that I just didn’t like. Here’s a quote (page 29:

“The night King Saran hung my people for the world to see, declaring war against the maji of today and tomorrow. The night magic died. [new paragraph] The night we lost everything. [new paragraph]”

And then, on the same page:

“Maybe he would’ve recovered if he hadn’t woken to find Mama’s corpse bound in black chains. But he did. [new paragraph]. He’s never been the same since. [new paragraph]”

Constantly using single-sentence paragraphs to drive a point home or make an impact causes it to completely lose its effect. And in the case of the first quote, if you’re using repetition for emphasis, you don’t also need to add a new paragraph for additional emphasis. The same point would have come across if it were all in the same paragraph. In the case of the second quote, that single-sentence paragraph could have been deleted entirely. It didn’t explain anything that the reader couldn’t deduce for themselves.

Secondly, also in relation to the writing, there were an annoying amount of “Ugh!”’s (written just like that, italics and all). This was a very minor issue and honestly not even a factor in bringing the rating down.

Third, and most important, were the characters. I felt like I could have liked them, but I really just liked their relationships with each other. The melodramatic writing made it really difficult for me to connect with them, like I should be really attached but I wasn’t. Zelie and Amari eventually grew on me, but Inan’s character growth just felt really weak.

I appreciate enemies-to-lovers (Zelie and Inan), but by the end of the book I was really frustrated by their relationship. It just felt really pointless, like it was thrown in there so both siblings of each family could have a love interest (in the bookish community, we call this ‘coupling’).

Fourth: some of the dialogue was very stilted.

Fifth: repeat after me: I cannot kill off a character solely for plot value.

Did you repeat?

Do you understand?

Good.

Now repeat after me again: I will not kill off multiple characters for shock value at various points in the book.

Did the message sink in?

Excellent.

Overall

I’ve seen other reviews say this book was really ‘trope-y’ and yeah, it kind of is. It has moments where it shines really bright, but there are other times where it feels jarringly unoriginal. I want to say it didn’t like up to my expectations, but the book came without a jacket so I really had no expectations. As a whole, I really enjoyed the book, and I would probably recommend it, even with its flaws. However, I read some reviews for the second book and I’m not sure I’ll continue, especially considering the third book hasn’t even come out yet and I have no idea how there’s enough content for this to become a trilogy (considering how much was crammed into this book).

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asiamh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.0

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micaelamariem's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

I’ll post a full review on my blog in the morning but omg this was a wonderful book! Based on Orisha mythology from West Africa, and inspired by the urge to fight back against police brutality of unarmed Black citizens, Tomi Adeyemi examines a fantasy world where magic users are stripped of their power and beaten down until a few characters decide they want a change, and how they can fight back against how they were taught their whole lives. Loved the character development, the world building, the important themes, and the shocking betrayals. Ends on a cliffhanger and I need the next book now!

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ericageorge91's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

3.25

Spoilers ahead!

Children of Blood and Bone (CoBaB) is about a quest to restore magic to the oppressed dîviner/maji people in a Nigerian-inspired world. It’s a multiple POV book that follows Zélie (a dîviner that lost her maji mother one fateful night), Amari (daughter of a violent king that wants to rid all magic), and Amari’s brother, Inan (heir to the throne with secret maji abilities).

My favorite part of this book is the mythology of Sky Mother and her deity children. As a kid, I loved that part of the Greek Mythology units where we learned about Zeus and the Olympians magical abilities and this book brought back that joy. I wished CoBaB explored more of that mythology in the story. Maybe, they’ll delve more into it in the sequel?

This is a YA book. I felt like the plot was predictable, but entertaining for the most part. This story definitely doesn’t shy away from the brutal oppression of the dîviner/maji in this world so be aware of that.

Random Thoughts:

Inan’s POV: Of the different POVs, reading Inan’s was the most frustrating experience. He harbors a lot of self-hatred after discovering his maji abilities. While this is completely understandable in light of his upbringing, it was still a lot 🙇🏾‍♀️ If this was a book full of trans characters, it would be like reading Kaitlyn Jenner’s POV and seeing her committed to destroying gender-affirming care, you know? I understand internalized hatred, but I need you to be so fucking for real right now. Do you really think they’re gonna pick you? Did Kaea not completely show her ass when she used her dying breath to call you a magical slur?? Do you really think your father won’t treat you the same 🤨

The Celebration: While that gods festival was beautiful and touching, the lack of urgency I often find in YA books needs to be studied. Did we not learn from the last time pursuers caught up with you when you let your guard down? Why THE FUCK are we throwing a party when you haven’t accomplished your task?? A vicious king is after you and you’re over here making eyes at your enemy-turned-love 🤦🏾‍♀️

The Romance: Amari and Tzain…fine…at least they’ve been traveling together so there was time for that relationship to develop. Inan and Zélie’s?? I know it’s supposed to be enemies-to-lovers but it felt so rushed and contrived. It just didn’t feel earned…at all. If I’m being honest, the only romantic relationship I believed in was Amari and Binta’s and they’re not even canon 💀

Zélie and Inan’s views on magic: Their flip flopping over whether or not magic should be dispersed didn’t feel consistent with their upbringing. Why does the girl who grew up revering magic fuck up once and immediately think, “Hold on now…maybe everyone getting magic isn’t a good idea?” Why do you have the guy who grew up despising magic have a moment of clarity and immediately gets on board with it?

Characterization: Amari was pretty fleshed out and had a decent amount of character development, but the rest of this cast felt flat. I’m not in love with any of these characters. Like, I would politely hold the door open for Zélie Adebola, but I would gently lay my jacket (or myself) across a puddle to protect Bree Matthews’ feet, you know what I mean?

Pacing: Along with Zelie and Inan’s romance, I felt like Inan’s character arc in CoBaB could have spanned across the entire trilogy. Same goes for gathering the magical items. Having them all in the first part of the book felt entirely too Convenient.

Lingering Questions: How did the king find Baba in the end? Did they explain that his sudden capture? And how is magic showing up with Inan and Amari? When it was just Inan, I thought it was because the queen cheated. Unless she did it multiple times? Or is this supposed to mean the gods found this non-maji worth it to gift powers? I don’t know.

Overall, I’m mildly curious to see where this story goes, but not pressed 🤷🏾‍♀️

TW: Murder/execution, grief (loss of parent), sexual harassment, colorism, child abuse (mention), death, arson, infidelity (mention), torture, self hate, abduction, PTSD, violence, animal death (brief), body shaming (brief)

Rep: BIPOC characters (Nigerian-inspired world)

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squinnittowinit's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Edit: After thinking on this book a bit more, I've decided to lower the rating from a 3.75 to a 2. I kept trying to convince myself that this was a good story because I keenly understand the place it was written from, but beyond the bare bones of it, I don't think it actually was. I didn't enjoy the characters and I felt like the plot didn't actually make a whole lot of sense. I've decided that I will not be reading the sequel.

Original review:
Overall, this is a good story with a (unfortunately) very relatable setting: an oppressive society that treats certain people as lesser due to something inherent that they cannot control. I felt the author's pain and anger surrounding this real-world issue in the writing, and perhaps if this had been my first exposure to the mindset of the oppressed group, I might have found it more impactful. However, I personally found it a little tiring for specific reasons that I will mark as a spoiler below.

Again, it is a good story, just one I've seen many times already. Nothing about it surprised me and as much as I was rooting for them, I didn't love any of the characters by the end. I'm not sure if you're supposed to or not.

Spoiler

The specific reasons I found this book to be tiring have a lot to do with the main characters. All three were naive to a fault, and retained that naivete throughout the entire book, even as their views on certain things changed. I suppose it's realistic, as they are all teenagers and teenagers are very naive, but I found it very frustrating to read about them doing impulsive and very ill-advised things over and over again and then only afterwards thinking that they might have been bad ideas.

Next, there is the issue of trauma. This is a book based in racial trauma, which makes it automatically not a fun read for me. Again, I really want to stress that I'm not saying it's bad, but it's very real, and it's hard to laugh at any of the jokes or moments of levity when the whole book is about oppression and I already experience oppression nearly constantly in my real life.

Next, as I said above, nothing about this book surprised me. I was never on the edge of my seat or uncertain about the fate of the characters, because I've seen this story so many times. It hit all the beats I was expecting it to, and the only death I didn't predict was a character that I didn't care about at all.

Finally, the romance. I'm all for a good romantic subplot, but I couldn't get behind this one. It was going for "enemies to lovers" but was done with no subtlety, I felt like I was being bashed over the head with foreshadowing about this relationship. Then, the actual enemies to lovers part happened seemingly overnight, and they suddenly didn't hate each other anymore. The romance gave me some emotional whiplash and made me feel like I was missing time.

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