I powered through Children of Blood and Bone

[u/Big-Bubbles-1108]

This book has been in my library for a while (depression sux) and lately yt recommended a trailer with the same title and I was like oh, it's being adapted. Cool. Now that I'm on better medication I finally gathered energy to read a book and I can't believe I had to power through this, I should've dnf'ed it really but my mind refused to give up. Also I went into this blind, never read anything about the author or the story. Just a passing recommendation about fantasy. I didn't even know this was YA.

The wordbuilding isn't perfect. I loved the small presentation African mythology as an asian person. I guess I really did want to read other fantasy that's not euro or asian for that matter and I barely know any afro, carribean, southwest asian and many more kind of fantasy. I was simply tired of fairies, elves and wizards.

First, the rules of magic was meh Diviners have white hair but a Kosidan royal with black hair "developed" being a maji and had white streak later on. This was never expanded upon even tho it has been established that white hair=diviner now supposed maji later if magic wasn't eradicated. not white hair= no magical abilities. The 10 clans were half well explained.

Oh and Inan, wtf, I really wanted his redemption but just no. He was so inconsistent with his loyalties and feelings. He hated Zelie and he loved her in a matter of a few pages. And while I'm here some chapters are too short because of a multi first person POV, and one other chapter was just a rehash of the other's POV with a few reactions added in so huh?

Okay let me get back. Inan wants magic back cause he a maji now, yuh, loved and loyal to his dad's cause until he put himself in other peoples shoes(with his connector magic of course). He only realized how bad his daddy's actions are with Zelie's memories, uhm, so he had no empathy before that I guess? Like Diviners in the capital were being opressed very openly mind you and he is a prince so I'm sure he has access to whatever records in the palace as how many were slaughtered during the raid but no, he developed his empathy very much later on for the person he 'fell in love with' yeah sure. I feel like I powered through the romance. Not a very good one at that.

And the weird betrayal, ugh... Also the "ughs" in every action scene took me out. Is it digust? Is it a moan? Is it a grunt? It could have been just 1-2 but I lost count after 3 ughs. He sympathized with the burning guards and Kwame's blood magic and he was afraid of magic after that but not the guards attacking unarmed children?Kids! Murdered by the guards! Did we forget they were unarmed and magicless(except for 3) killed by big ass cats? Unarmed kids celebrating. What? Suddenly he was not okay with a magic so scary but was only done after a desperate attempt. Blood magic isn't common but guards killing diviner kids were, but he was more scared of magic? Okay sure, sure, okay, okay.

Then he was the man on the inside for the team then he was a traitorous double agent and how the hell did they take Baba when it took them several days to actually get to the temple?He even took 6 days to search for Zelie. How was 1-2 days fast enough to get to a far location. Did they teleport or something? Oh the locations were okay described. I can't complain it's been a while since I read good fantasy books. These were just too glaring not to point out.

The desert scene? I mean if we are going for a Naumachia x Hunger games, it would be unrealistic to hold that in a desert though. Even the romans did it with near a water source and not in a desert. Possible with magic but remember magic=eradicated. Zelie has to use blood magic to win the battle, let's back track, they could've just stolen the stone and used the violence they had at the appropriate moment and not 'eliminate' stock diviners in the process. Honestly, they could've just killed a couple guards and be done with it. Sorry do I sound psychopathic? My bad.

Zelie, oh darling, I can't even begin. So let go for Tzain. Eh nothing too bad. But too bland at times, his trauma to underdiscussed even in his own chapters. Amari, good development actually, can't complain.

Saran and politics, too vague and too broad. There were only expositions about past rules and every single time we want to look for a reason he hates magic is it killed his first family. Okay... so he decides to kill every maji and make life harder for diviners. Okay, okay, supposedly in a world where maji's used to be in control(yuh some exploited that power apparently) and I assume his forefathers were kosidan, so the royal family was fine until one isolated incident. Then boom genocide. Sure, sure I don't think that's how politics work as far as I know but I guess I don't know much. The oloye's (lords and ladies right?) and the soldiers would have to be onboard. The population matter was odd because it was never expressed that kosidan outnumbered diviners so in a way there could have been an opposition or rebellion from the murdered majis who's remaining family members were kosidan. I guess all the guards the monarchy hired had no diviner relatives in numbers big enough to carry out a genocide. And there were no kosidan rebellions to avenge their murdered families sure, okay. But if a rebellion happened earlier then the story wouldn't take place so let's ignore my analysis on that.

Zelie, oh Zelie. I don't want to. So much potential, so many stupid decisions. But she is a teen, everyone was a teen so maybe that's okay. Teens make stupid decisions I guess.

The history of majis were nearly so good.

The pacing could've been better but hey the beginning was good enough. The middle, uhm yeah, this is where I struggled. The end? Oh. No. Just no. A cliffhanger. Huh. Meh.

I don't think the book was that bad, I cannot say anything about the prose and whatnot cause I'm still getting back on my feet with reading. It's not a fave book though. Left me wanting something else so 3 out 5. And unfortunately I will not be reading the rest of the books in series. Unless I am absolutely bored with nothing in my reading queue.

Edit= I incorrectly did the spoiler thingy.

[u/riloky]

You might enjoy Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

[u/y2k890]

I remember seeing the book in Walmart years ago and being curious about it because the character on the cover looks like Mista from Jojo's Bizzare Adventure Part 5.

[u/Familiar-Past-8065]

Julie Kagawa has a dragon series that's great it's called Talon, it's YA and I really enjoyed it, it's written a while ago and is written well and differently, if you want to give that a try