Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

My next stop in the Book Junkie Trials is The Drowning Deep, which asks us to read a book with rich world-building. I decided to go with Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. This African-inspired young adult fantasy received a lot of hype when it came out, and I've wanted to give it a shot for a long time. This is the book I'm using for my Scribe weakness, as it's just over 500 pages. Eager to be whisked away to a new magical realm, I dove in.

The story is set in an African-inspired fantasy realm called Orisha. A small percentage of the people in this world used to be able to use magic, but a tyrant king named Saran managed to sever the link between these people and their gods, causing magic to disappear from the land. Now King Saran rules with an iron fist, abusing the powerless Magi. Using a combination of executions, unfair taxation, and indentured slavery, he has decimated the group, and those Magi who are left live in a constant state of fear.

The plot is told from three different perspectives. The first perspective is Zelie, a teenage Magi who is still filled with rage and sorrow after the execution of her mother during one of Saran's raids. She spends her days caring for her father with Tzain, her older brother. Their father is unable to care for himself after enduring a harsh beating from Saran's men on the night his wife was killed. Together, the siblings work to make a living as fishermen in their small coastal village.

The next perspective is Amari, Saran's daughter and the royal princess of Orisha. She knows her father is a cruel man and is uncomfortable with the way he rules the kingdom. One day, she overhears him discussing a magical artifact that his captain of the guard procured for him. This scroll seems to have the power to awaken the magical powers of the magi, and the king is determined to destroy it. Before he can do that, Amari makes a decision that will change the course of her life forever; she steals the scroll and runs away with it.

The last perspective is Inan, Saran's son and the prince of Orisha. Unlike his sister Amari, Inan believes in his father's vision. He dislikes all the violence, but believes it to be necessary in order to protect the kingdom. He wants to show that he will make a good king when the time comes. When Amari steals the scroll and disappears, the king tasks Inan with going out and bringing her back. He accepts the mission, hungry to prove his worth.

These characters come together when Zelie travels to a marketplace to sell a valuable fish. Amari, scroll in hand, crashes into her and awakens her magical powers. She pleads for help escaping the city, and Zelie, not understanding what is really happening, helps her get away. Upon returning to Zelie's village, the pair consult one of the town elders about the scroll, and they learn that the scroll contains instructions on how to complete a ritual that will restore magic to Orisha permanently. Immediately, Zelie, Tzain, and Amari set off on a quest to return magic to the land. Their journey is filled with danger and difficult choices, and Inan is constantly at their backs, threatening to ruin everything. Together, the group must find a way to push through their obstacles and bring their people the power they need to fight back against King Saran.

I have mixed feelings on Children of Blood and Bone. I'll start off with what I did like. I think the best element of the novel was the setting. I haven't read any fantasies based on African culture and mythology before, and I really enjoyed the rich, vivid world that Adeyemi created. It was vibrant, spiritual, and very distinctive. It was a pleasure to travel through it.Young adult fantasy novels generally aren't very diverse, and Orisha was a refreshing change. This aspect was phenomenal and is by far the biggest reason to pick this novel up.

I also enjoyed the final battle sequence of the story. It was one of those big, epic endings that felt like a worthy way to conclude the book. The action was fast-paced and well written, making it easy to visualize all the characters' actions. It was very dramatic and it leaves you with an interesting cliffhanger to think about while waiting for book two.

These great elements were undercut for me with some issues. There was a noticeable lack of explanation about how the magic system works. The magic in Orisha is divided into ten different types, each of which is tied to a different deity and controls different things. For example, there are people who can control fire, people who can read minds, and people who can heal injuries. Zelie's magic is to control the souls of the dead. She can summon souls to do her bidding, essentially allowing her to raise powerful armies of the dead to fight for her. This is a really cool power, but explanations for how it works, what its rules are, the the toll it takes on Zelie when she wields it are thin, confusing, and often come way later in the text than I would like.

The rules of magic that are explained in the story are inconsistently applied as well. One instance of this is the mechanics of blood magic, which magi can invoke to strengthen their powers. This is supposed to be an extremely dangerous practice, and we are warned multiple times that it can be deadly. Different characters end up using it a handful of times in the story, all with different results. Once, someone is drained to the point of exhaustion, once, someone dies, and once, not much happens at all. It's never really explained why there is such a variation of experiences here.

There were timing problems as well. At the beginning of Zelie's quest, she is told that she has less than a month to complete certain tasks and reach a specific location. When she hears this, she is dismayed, because that amount of time is barely long enough to reach the location. It is not long enough to both do the tasks and travel. However, the group sets out to give it a try anyway. After that point, the group spends multiple days fighting, overcoming various obstacles, getting captured, escaping captivity, and even spending a whole day planning and attending a festival. Somehow, they still have enough time to do everything, and comment several times that they still have plenty of time. This was noticeable and distracting. It felt like a mistake. Secondary characters had similar issues, as they were able to travel much faster than they should have between locations in order to cause problems for Zelie.

I also have to mention the romance. An insta-love romance blooms for Zelie and it didn't feel genuine. It didn't make sense that characters so passionate about their goals and desires would fall back into cringe-worthy romantic stereotypes. The relationship was poorly developed, unbelievable, and took away from the powerful story that Adeyemi was crafting.

So. clearly, there were elements of the story that I didn't like, and I realize that I am definitely in the minority when it comes to being critical of this novel. I think that Adeyemi's writing style just didn't click with me, so I wasn't engaged enough in the story to suspend my disbelief on some of these issues. I didn't have a bad reading experience, but I didn't have one as good as I was expecting to have either. I'm glad that so many other people were drawn into this novel though, and found so much to love in it. I appreciate Adeyemi's world-building and vivid fantasy setting. I also appreciate the important social issues she points to throughout the novel, as Zelie's journey mirrors modern day struggles with systematic oppression and police brutality. I still liked it enough to continue on with the series, and I hope that I will enjoy future installments a little bit more.


Challenge Tally
Book Junkie Trials (The Drowning Deep - Read a book with rich world-building) 4/17
Finally in 2019: 24/6 Books Read - Complete!

Total Books Read in 2019: 42