Synopsis:

Tomi Adeyemi conjures a stunning world of dark magic and danger in her West African-inspired fantasy debut Children of Blood and Bone. They killed my mother. They took our magic. They tried to bury us. Now we rise. Zelie remembers when the soil of Orisha hummed with magic. When different clans ruled – Burners igniting flames, Tiders beckoning waves, and Zelie’s Reaper mother summoning forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, anyone with powers was targeted and killed, leaving Zelie without a mother and her people without hope. Only a few people remain with the power to use magic, and they must remain hidden. Zelie is one such person. Now she has a chance to bring back magic to her people and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zelie must learn to harness her powers and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orisha, where strange creatures prowl, and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zelie herself as she struggles to come to terms with the strength of her magic – and her growing feelings for an enemy.

Review:

I would hate to be the one that says it.. but .. wait who am I kidding. I don’t care. This plot has been done so many times before that I honestly found the whole thing so predictable. Maybe I read too much? Is there such a thing?

I might as well start with the positives for this book considering Jimmy Fallon just names this book the summer read of 2018!

The writing was stunning, I’ll pay that to Adeyemi. It was smooth and creative, even when it jumped from one POV to another. Overall the writing was my favourite part of the whole book. Hence the 3 stars and not anything less.

The book itself has been already done. Let’s see. You have the Prince that needs to prove himself to his family in the name of honour. The runaway princess that dreams of something more. And then you have the hero that came from nothing that goes on the quest to make the world a better place. That’s your three characters rolled up into a nutshell I call ‘been there done that.’ Not to mention a hidden magic that is returning to the world as well as your basic poor vs rich situation.

The plot… well.. it dragged on and on and was completely repetitive. Heroes, quickly let’s get to this magical spot before they catch up. Villian comes close to capturing them but they get again. Again back to the nut situation. It was hard to stay focused when you already know what is going to happen and there is nothing really unique about this story.

The characters were great. They were stubborn, vicious and determined. What I didn’t like is the different POV in this story. You get the POV from Zelie, Amari and Inan. I found that when you jumped from one character to another that they repeated themselves from their previous POV. So every time we jumped back to Inan’s point of view he kept repeating himself about his father and sister and why he is chasing her down. I’m sorry but you need to keep it fresh to keep me interested.

I finished this book about two weeks ago and honestly there was nothing memorable about it, so that’s going down as a negative. If you put down a book and you remember hardly anything then that is a sign that the book wasn’t overly enjoyable. Not in the slightest.

So besides the great personalities of the characters and the great writing of Adeyemi, this book wasn’t one I recommend nor would I re-read it. IT will be great to see what Adeymi comes out with in the future and hopefully by then she thinks of an original plot line.

Rating: 3/5

ISBN: 9781509871353

Publisher: Macmillan