Children of Blood and Bone / Toni Adeyemi

1.5/5

Children of Blood and Bone is a West African- inspired fantasy novel filled with magic. Magic in the land of Orisha is suppressed by the king, and Zelie has lived her whole training to stay safe as a maji. When she gets tangled up in a mission to save magic and in a run-in with a conflicted princess, she also finds herself messily tied to the prince.

Blood and Bone is ambitious in its goals of representing West-African culture. I'm not familiar with West-African culture so I can't say how accurate the novel is, but I greatly enjoyed hearing about different beliefs and traditions, and I admire Toni Adeyemi for her efforts toward representation and the beautiful world she created. But other than representation efforts, there aren't many compliments I can give Blood and Bone. 

The set up for the novel is full of high stakes action and life-or-death intensity, but the writing simply doesn't deliver. Blood and Bone switches perspectives between Zelie, Amari, and Inan, and though their voices were written differently, the difference was not as great as it should have been between characters that are so different. I didn't have a problem differentiating because what they said and the context of the narration made it clear, but I think the chapters would have benefited from more distinct writing styles. The writing often felt cliche in terms of dialogue and plot (such as in the opening scene, or whenever someone got jealous). My biggest problem with the novel, though, are the characters. I like Zelie's brother, although his overreaction towards the end of the book felt very much like a plot device to add more drama and fills the book with too much testosterone. Amari has the best character development, I enjoy her but her role isn't large enough. She feels like a flimsy character that Adeyemi brushes past in favor of Zelie and Inan, the worse half of the four main characters. Zelie isn't the worst lead but she is definitely not strong or smart enough to be a favorite. And Inan is by far, the weakest, most painfully difficult character to read. He is spineless throughout the entire novel, he does disgusting and immoral actions to those he claims he loves, and to make things even worse, Zelie, our supposedly "strong" female lead, accepts it!

If you are looking for fantasy and magic, I would recommend Strange the Dreamer or the Grisha trilogy.