A review by catbooking
The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst
2.0
Things I loved: the first 20% of the book. Zera. The doll constructs. The doll constructs were pretty much the only reason I kept reading the last 20% of the book.
As whole the book is very shallow, you would think with 500 pages there would be plenty of room for character development and world building, but you would be wrong. Most of those pages are taken up by repeating the same thing over and over. “If we don't succeed this bad thing will happen. The thing that is very bad. It is bad. We need to succeed. We all know that if we don't succeed the bad thing will happen.” It was so bad that it reminded me of the “The poison. The poison for Kuzco, the poison chosen especially to kill Kuzco, Kuzco's poison. That poison?” line. I am not an idiot like your characters, I can keep things in my mind and think more than one step ahead.
This brings me to character development, or lack thereof. Pretty much everyone in the world is a certifiable idiot. Which I guess is not indicative of a bad book, but is pretty much an unforgivable sin in my mind. It is really hard to keep supporting the heroes when they just keep doing the same stupid thing that hadn't worked the first time. Or plan for things not working. Or plan for people to be a bit smarter than a wet paper bag. But I digress. Character development! Nothing ever goes past the 'he is a thief and fast' or 'he is big and strong' or 'he sees the future and screams' or 'she is smart and brooding'. There are no arcs. No one learns anything. Well, they learn but not like through experience more like through holding hands and telling each other that they learned something.
I started out being super excited about the book, and ended up wondering if this was someone's D&D campaign put on paper. Such an exciting world, with interesting magic and creepy rag-dolls and all wasted on a plot that only works if everyone is a middle-schooler.
As whole the book is very shallow, you would think with 500 pages there would be plenty of room for character development and world building, but you would be wrong. Most of those pages are taken up by repeating the same thing over and over. “If we don't succeed this bad thing will happen. The thing that is very bad. It is bad. We need to succeed. We all know that if we don't succeed the bad thing will happen.” It was so bad that it reminded me of the “The poison. The poison for Kuzco, the poison chosen especially to kill Kuzco, Kuzco's poison. That poison?” line. I am not an idiot like your characters, I can keep things in my mind and think more than one step ahead.
This brings me to character development, or lack thereof. Pretty much everyone in the world is a certifiable idiot. Which I guess is not indicative of a bad book, but is pretty much an unforgivable sin in my mind. It is really hard to keep supporting the heroes when they just keep doing the same stupid thing that hadn't worked the first time. Or plan for things not working. Or plan for people to be a bit smarter than a wet paper bag. But I digress. Character development! Nothing ever goes past the 'he is a thief and fast' or 'he is big and strong' or 'he sees the future and screams' or 'she is smart and brooding'. There are no arcs. No one learns anything. Well, they learn but not like through experience more like through holding hands and telling each other that they learned something.
I started out being super excited about the book, and ended up wondering if this was someone's D&D campaign put on paper. Such an exciting world, with interesting magic and creepy rag-dolls and all wasted on a plot that only works if everyone is a middle-schooler.