Uptown Oracle Reads… Children of Blood and Bone

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zelie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were targeted and killed, leaving Zélie motherless and her people without hope. Now, Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie as she struggles to control her powers—and her feelings for the enemy.

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Children of Blood and Bone
Tomi Adeyemi

The world building is (as usual) my favourite part of the book. I love that I know the history, the culture, the religious aspects of different characters. This did not disappoint. The history was slowly built up throughout the entire book which means you can understand what’s happened to each of the individual characters in the past. This makes it easy to understand our characters motivations and their actions a little more. Zelie has a culture vastly different to Amari, who’s also of a different class. This makes for dynamic conversations as they, as characters, have to learn about one another.

I found the magic system to be totally Avatar-esque. Except we had more ‘clans’ of magic users and they all have a more distinct use for their powers. The one thing about magic I disliked is that most of the magic users were just able to user their magic without training or practise. This wasn’t so much of a problem for our main characters but for the side ones that ventured into the story after half way. There were also a few times when I was sat there thinking why the characters weren’t utilising their magic in a bad situation.

The book is filled racial prejudices that mirror our own societies (which is what Adeyemi was trying to do) and  it’s written so well that you fear for the characters lives throughout. One of my favourite pages of the book is when our main character Zelie tries to explain to Innan who’s been brought up to be prejudiced against the magi how she feels around the guards who treat her badly. She’s trying to tell him over and over again that she can’t just go back and live in the city when the monarchy and the people with power in the city see her as a ‘maggot’ and beneath them. And he just doesn’t seem to understand what she’s telling him, and he doesn’t want to believe it – and you just know that this is a conversation that Tomi Adeyemi and other POC have had multiple times before. This was so well written, and so very clearly written from the heart that I had to pause for a bit before going back to the book.

Children of Blood and Bone’s pacing was wonderful and I never felt bored with the content. It was always quite fast paced and with something interesting going on. From the start there was a strong ‘let’s get shit done’ vibe from our main characters who were happy to just keep on going and to get into interesting situations. The only time I felt like we needed to move on was during some of the ‘romantic’ scenes.

My problem with romance isn’t just towards this book by any means (If you read my reviews a lot you’ll already know my feelings). But this particular book was annoying me for a single reason. Every character was paired up with another one. And some were written okay I guess, one of the ‘couples’ I was on board with and was naturally built up. But another one was a trope ridden snooze fest which seemed to be written in specifically for YA readers who enjoy romance, and not because of good plot reasoning.

Romance not included, all the characters did have great story arcs and evolved (and devolved?) throughout the story. But they didn’t evolve into full grown great characters, not yet. There’s definite room for improvement and redemption arcs in the next book which I am so excited for. Plus, the cliff hanger was so well done that I just want to get the next book like now. The book was a wonderful read, and as you can see I only really had one fault with it! Which for me makes this fantastic!

POSITIVES

+ World building and magic system

+ Fast pace

+ Cliff Hanger

NEGATIVES

– Everyone get’s a romantic pairing

I received Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi from the publisher via Netgalley. This is an unbiased and honest review