BOOKS | Review: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Name: The Bone Season (The Bone Season series #1)

Author: Samantha Shannon

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Date published: August 2013

Genre: Fiction, adult, science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal, dystopia

Pages: 466

Rating: 4/5

 

 

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant - and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.

It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

- From Goodreads.

I found The Bone Season to be a very inventive and exciting story that I did not want to put down. It had a few small problems but nothing that truly ruined my enjoyment and overall it was a great start to a series.

One of my favourite things about the book was the world it was set in. It is our world, but in a future with advanced technology, and with alternate history that diverged from our history 200 years back from where the book takes place. There is also clairvoyance added into this world, which makes it all a fascinating mix that I think was handled well. At first there was a strange mixture of a lot of explanation of the worldbuilding taking place at once, while at the same time not all of the names for everything where explained, but I managed to go along with it and still follow the story easily, and was soon enough very immersed in the story and its world.

My other favourite part of this book was Paige, the main character. I just completely loved her, I loved that she got angry, I loved that she was determined, and stood her ground, and I loved that despite everything and all the awful situations she had been in she still cared for other people and stood up for them too. Her particular type of clairvoyancy was very intriguing too and it was interesting to learn about it and see her develop her skills with it more over the course of the book.

I was not sure how I felt about the character of Warden. I definitely hated him at times as Paige justifiably did, and some of the things he did, if I was in Paige's position, I am not sure I would have been able to forgive him for. I did not like how her was forceful with her at times, and consequently as they became closer and formed a bond, I did not feel their connection as much as I would have liked. But I am still interested to see if or how his character develops or changes over the series and if that makes me like him and their relationship more.

All the other side characters were compelling and well-rounded and always added something to the scenes they were in. There were some of them I would definitely be excited to see more of in future books. 

Overall, it felt like a very unique book that always kept me curious to find out what would happen next and invested in the characters, particularly Paige. I will definitely be reading on with the rest of the series and I am excited to see what the next books bring.

BOOKS | Review: Edgewood by Kristen Ciccarelli

Name: Edgewood

Author: Kristen Ciccarelli

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Date published: March 2022

Genre: Fiction, young adult, fantasy, romance

Pages: 400

Rating: 2/5

No matter how far she runs, the forest of Edgewood always comes for Emeline Lark. The scent of damp earth curls into her nose when she sings and moss creeps across the stage. It’s as if the woods of her childhood, shrouded in folklore and tall tales, are trying to reclaim her. But Emeline has no patience for silly superstitions.

When her grandfather disappears, leaving only a mysterious orb in his wake, the stories Emeline has always scoffed at suddenly seem less foolish. She enters the forest she has spent years trying to escape, only to have Hawthorne Fell, a handsome and brooding tithe collector, try to dissuade her from searching.

Refusing to be deterred, Emeline finds herself drawn to the court of the fabled Wood King himself. She makes a deal - her voice for her grandfather’s freedom. Little does she know, she’s stumbled into the middle of a curse much bigger than herself, one that threatens the existence of this eerie world she’s trapped in, along with the devastating boy who feels so familiar.

With the help of Hawthorne - an enemy turned reluctant ally who she grows closer to each day - Emeline sets out to not only save her grandfather’s life, but to right past wrongs, and in the process, discover her true voice.

- From Goodreads.

During the first few chapters of Edgewood, I felt unsure about the story and how it would go, I did not quite understand Emeline at first because despite growing up in a mystical place and having mystical things happen around her all her life, she continued to deny anything magical could be happening, and I struggled to connect with the story at the beginning because of that. Although I began to enjoy the story a little more once it moved into the forest and the Wood King's court, it was still frustrating that Emeline did not seem to understand the seriousness of the situation and how it had changed everything. There were a few moments where she felt more naïve or behaved more foolishly than seemed realistic for a character with her knowledge and experience. While there were moments I did like her and empathised with her, unfortunately I found it quite difficult to root for Emeline as the story went on. I could not quite understand her priorities and why answers to problems did not occur to her, or why at times, even though she seemed to care for her friends and the forest they lived in, she never seemed to be that focused on helping and saving them.

As the story did go further on and was more about the time in the forest and the time with the Wood King's court, the were more elements about it that I enjoyed. The sense of adventure, the different fairy tale and myth inspirations, and creative setting really made me intrigued to know more about the magical world and the creatures living there. 

However, the plot felt a little repetitive at times, although there were mysteries I was interested in seeing the answers to, it did feel like we kept going through the same problems over and over again without getting any closer to the solutions, so it did feel frustrating to read, even though I was excited to get to the end to find out how everything resolved. I also did not like the answers we got for some of the mysteries, I felt they did not completely make sense with the information we had already been told and I felt some of the backstories they filled in did not make sense for the characters we knew either, creating storylines for those characters that I felt were inconsistent. Some of the answers to the mysteries I think I would have liked more if they had been revealed in a different way and we got the story told differently, but some of the answers to the mysteries I really did just not like at all, and some of them made it hard for me to continue to root for characters I had previously liked.

I am still unsure how I felt about the ending, because some parts of it were quite satisfying and wrapped up some of the storylines in a way that I liked and had been hoping for, but in other ways I was still left feeling not quite content and it did not really have everything I wanted after all that the characters had been through.

There was so much potential in this book. The magical world was so fascinating and I really wanted to get immersed into it, but we did not explore it as much as I would have liked. There were quite a few characters I did like and that I always enjoyed seeing more of, mainly some of the side characters, but I struggled to connect to the main character, although sometimes I did really feel her emotional struggles. While I liked the romance between the main character and her love interest, there was not quite enough time with them together for me to get truly invested, and a couple of moments that they did have together fell flat for me. The plot left me feeling disappointed as I thought it could have gone in some really exciting directions, but I ended up feeling a bit lost with where it did go. Overall it could have been a really great book for me and I could see why someone else might enjoy it, but ultimately I struggled with it too much to rate it highly and was left feeling conflicted.

BOOKS | Review: Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

Name: Poison Study (Poison Study series #1, The Chronicles of Ixia series #1)

Author: Maria V. Snyder

Publisher: Mira Books

Date published: September 2007

Genre: Fiction, adult, fantasy, romance, adventure

Rating: 4/5

Choose:

A quick death

Or slow poison...

Yelena has a choice – be executed for murder, or become food taster to the Commander of Ixia. She leaps at the chance for survival, but her relief may be short-lived.

Life in the palace is full of hazards and secrets. Wily and smart, Yelena must learn to identify poisons before they kill her, recognise whom she can trust and how to spy on those she can’t. And who is the mysterious Southern sorceress who can reach into her head?

When Yelena realises she has extraordinary powers of her own, she faces a whole new problem, for using magic in Ixia is punishable by death...

- From Goodreads.

Poison Study was an incredibly exciting and intense adventure with plenty of different plot threads weaving together that kept me turning the pages, invested in finding out what would happen next.

I thought the world was built well, the country it was set in, its history and politics all felt real and interesting to unravel and come to understand over the course of the story. I enjoyed the descriptions of the settings and felt they added to the mood and atmosphere of the story well.

My favourite part of the story was definitely the characters. Yelena was a great main character to follow as I loved seeing her grow and learn throughout the novel, and I thought her conflict and pain over her past and her struggles to feel strong despite that were very endearing. I also really enjoyed her dynamic and interactions with Valek, who was a very intriguing character, and I always looked forward to seeing him in a scene and seeing what he would do.

The side characters in the story were also well written, all of them engaging, whether they were likeable or hateful, they definitely added to the story and gave it plenty of depth.

One of the things that did take me out of the flow of the story once or twice was the writing of the action scenes, which I did not always find easy to follow or to picture in my mind, but this did not lessen my enjoyment too much and I am hopeful it could improve in the other books in the series, which I absolutely plan on reading.

Another thing I should mention is that this book does deal with some more serious topics, such as abuse and sexual assault. In general I felt this was dealt with carefully, but there were a couple of small scenes I felt unsure about and that were certainly not easy to read, so if that is something that could upset you, I would be cautious when reading this book.

Overall it was a really great book that was very quick to read as I was enjoying my time with it and was very invested with finding out how it would end. I became quite attached to the characters I liked and will certainly be reading on in the series to find out what happens to them all. I recommend this if you like the politics and danger of books like The Cruel Prince and the world building of something like Shadow and Bone.