So, I’m going to start off by saying I love this book and everything about it. It was one of my most anticipated books of this year and for it to be adapted into a movie straight after it was publish got me even more excited to read it.
They killed my mother
They took my magic
They tried to bury us
Now we rise
Children of Blood and Bone is by Tomi Adeyemi and I can’t begin to describe how powerful this book is. The blurb above is from the back of the book and I didn’t change it as those four phrases have so much power and emphasis behind it would be a shame to change it.
To begin with, at the very first chapter I was happily surprised with how well and cultured the writing style was. Turns out Tomi Adeyemi graduated from Harvard with a degree in English literate, go figure. But what I was so intrigued about was that even though this book is a fantasy one, the pain and suffering within is very much real. In her author’s note, she says that this book is based off all the coloured skin people being shot down from police’s brutality. And from this mothers are ripped away from children, fathers ripped about from their families. So, to learn that the sorrow within this book is real has those feelings that were already prominently there intensified by a colossal amount. This book was so hyped up, that I was worried it wouldn’t be justified, but boy was I wrong. This book smashed its way through my expectations.
Children of Blood and Bone is about this world where magic did exist until the current king killed his way through it all, slaughtering all the Maji (Maji – the people who can control magic) leaving the main character Zelie shattered and broken as her mother was among those killed. What makes this book based on what it is, is that the people who would or had magic are dark skinned with white as paper hair separating them from everyone else. Zelie is a diviner which is what you call a Maji before they are initiated into being a Maji (basically children and teenagers who haven’t become an adult but with magic instead).
This book follows Zelie, her brother Tzain and a rogue princess on their journey to restore magic to the world so that the diviners can have a chance at survival. Through it, all the princess whose name is Amari has a twin brother who is “infected” with magic and is on a relentless hunt to kill Zelie and stop magic from ever coming back.
Through it, all romance blooms within this book between the characters but for one of them I thought it wasn’t really necessary has the guy within this relationship was very indecisive about where he stands with the war brewing around them. And it felt like this romance was a little unrealistic as it happened within a time span of a couple of hours.
Other than that, I really didn’t have an issue with anything else in the book, but I will explain my little issue with it in the spoiler section has you can’t really talk about it much more then I have already done.
I loved everything else in this book, especially how you got to see the characters grow and come to terms with the situation around them.
One of the main themes throughout this book is pain, suffering and sorrow. Which Tomi Adeyemi has described in her author’s note as very much real and wished that for whoever read it to take something away from it. The pain and the sorrow are suffocating, but not in a bad way, it is suffocating to the point were the message it pushed for the reader to really think about. Which I really enjoyed reading about as it really was stressing the point that even though it is fantasy these emotions are very much real.
So, for all the people who haven’t read the book, I highly recommend that you do, as it is a fantastic book with amazing character development and it hits you right in the feels with the pain and sorrow. But I do have to warn you that there is quite a bit of violence within the text and the blood spilt could literally fill and oceans worth, but never the less still amazing quality writing.
As I said before that had a minor issue with one of the romantic relationships, that, of course, implied Inan and Zelie. Inan was annoying in my sense, as he was always changing his mind about magic. He hated it and then he loved it then he hated and then it was beautiful only with Zelie and so on. This got me frustrated as he did this regularly and I didn’t think that his romance with Zelie was necessary and overall, I didn’t like him.
But what really got me annoyed was when he brought Baba into it at the very end and then Baba ended up dead. And I hope that Zelie would never forgive him for it and talking about ships I would even prefer Zelie to go with Roen then Inan. But then again, I don’t really see anyone with Zelie at the moment. I just have to wait and see the next book.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading Children of Blood and Bone and I loved the writing style so sophisticated. I highly recommend this book to anyone as I can already tell that this is going to be a fantastic fantasy book series.
Rating 4.5/5
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