Children of Blood and Bone - Tomi Adeyemi

I didn't really pick the book this month. Jen mentioned that she wanted to read this one and since I had made no decision on what to read, I looked it up and thought, let's give it a try. I don't think we have ever done fantasy before, so it was nice to try a new genre. My library calls this book a Young Adult, so we also branched into that genre as well.

This book takes place in the fictional country of Orisha where magic used to be common to some of the population, known as Maji. Some years ago, the King tried to rid the kingdom of magic by killing the Maji and destroying their artifacts. In a small show of compassion, the King did not kill the children of the Maji, also known as diviners, who had not yet come into their magical powers. However because diviners are born with snow white hair, society quickly dissolved into class separation where diviners were forced to the outskirts and taxed excessively, resulting in some being forced into labour camps.

We follow a girl named Zelie, a diviner, who struggles to control her impulses, which quickly gets her into trouble with soldiers. She and her brother Tzain must travel to another city to sell a much coveted fish at the market to cover her family's increased taxes. While at the market, a girl stops Zelie asking for help as she is chased by soldiers. The girl turns out to be the King's daughter Amari who stole a Maji artifact from her father. The soldiers are led by Amari's brother Inan who has been conditioned to hate Maji by his father. When Zelie touches the artifact, her magic returns and she is pulled into a quest to bring magic back to Orisha.

With the help of Tzain and Amari, Zelie sets out to restore magic before the centennial solstice in less than a month. They must find the other two artifacts to go along with the scroll and get to the magical island to perform the ceremony. To make things more complicated, somehow Inan became a Maji when he touched the scroll trying to stop Amari and Zelie. As Inan tries to repress his magic, he is torn between his obsession with Zelie and magic and obeying his father.

The book is 550 pages long, so I won't go into too much detail here. But there are lots of battle scenes, some sad deaths, and some romances buried in the story, at times unnecessarily so.

The chapters switch between Zelie, Amari, and Inan and could get repetitive as the author showed us the same story from a different point of view. The characters are all teenagers (hence the YA classification) and there were multiple times in the book that I became frustrated with their decisions.

Both Jen and I reached a point in the story where we struggled to continue reading. But we both persevered and finished the book. We both felt that parts of the book could have been eliminated or shortened significantly to make the book flow better. The overall story was interesting and the touch on racism and classism made for a thoughtful addition. We both enjoyed the different types of Maji, though thinking about it now, we really didn't get much information on the powers of most of them unless the character was essential to the story.

After finishing the book I learned that the story was loosely based on some Nigerian beliefs and the landscape was mirroring some of Nigeria. I would like to spend a bit of time learning more, but am not sure I'll get to it any time soon. I also learned that this book was highly anticipated and many fantasy readers really enjoyed it. I may be an outlier with my less than enthusiastic feelings!

This is the first of three books in the series and while Jen will likely continue, I'm not sure I care enough to read another. I'll have to wait for her review of the second book before I pick it up.

Overall, if you enjoy the fantasy genre and YA, you might want to give this one a try.

Susan - 📘📘📘

Until next time, have a drink, read a book, and be happy!