Here we are again, it’s you and me and a review full of unpopular opinions. Children of Blood and Bone by Toni Adeymi was released in March of this year and received a flood of super positive reviews. This created the dreaded hype. Whenever a book is hyped like this I have to read it, cut to me buying this book and reading it as soon as I possibly could.
Believe me, I went into this book thinking that I was going to love it and it would become a new fantasy favourite. Spoiler alert, that hasn’t quite happened.
THE BEGINNING
This is quite an ominous sub-heading, right? A bit like the title of this book. Anyway, I found the first 25% of this book to be SLOW. I mean really slow. I had to power through some of the initial chapters because it felt like it could have been written in less than 50 pages if the author was more experienced?
INSTA-LOVE? INSTA-NOPE.
I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I am bored of insta-love in YA fiction. It’s so predictable and lazy. Children of Blood and Bone, unfortunately, plays host to a ridiculous case of insta-love. Let’s start with Inan, OK? He’s bad news. In the words of Zelie:
“Good hearts don’t leave scars like that. They don’t burn villages down.”
He’s such a weak character, who is quick to change sides and be persuaded on what to believe. I was super disappointed in both Zelie and our author when she gave them time to have a romance. In my opinion, they should have stayed as enemies, and Zelie should have had the satisfaction of killing Inan herself.
NO COMEUPPANCE WILL BE ENOUGH
To be honest, the violence and cruelty that we see in this book mean that there is not enough revenge that our author can dish out to make things better. We, as the readers, see some horrendous acts of cruelty that we cannot possibly be asked to forgive any of the guilty characters *cough* Inan *cough*.
MAGIC, OR NAH?
The magical elements of this novel were the driving force behind the entire plot, but after 500 pages I still do not understand how the magical system works?! That’s a little disappointing.
HURRAH FOR TZAIN!
Tzain is hands-down my favourite character. He is a fantastically written brother and friend. He is totally believable as the exasperated older brother who is desperately trying to keep his family together whilst keeping his little sister out of trouble whilst quietly grieving and falling in love. My favourite moment between Tzain and Zelie:
“That! He points. “Keep doing that!” Pride swells in my chest, heating me from within”
Just a brilliantly written sister-brother relationship. Yes yes yes.
ZELIE WAS OK
In the beginning, I really liked how much of a screw up our clumsy main character was. She grows into such a strong warrior who is riddled with self-doubt in the most endearing way possible. However, any spark of that seems extinguished when she falls for Inan! Luckily the ending does quite a lot to remedy this – so maybe the next book will be better?
LYRICAL WRITING
Except for the first 100 pages that were slightly long-winded and clumsy, the book was written in a lovely fast-paced and whimsical style that I flew through!
bookswithbain 
Ha ha! You’r not the only one to have these opinions so don’t feel like you have the unpopular opinion!! (especially about the magic system, I have heard A LOT of people say that it was very inconsistent and convoluded!)
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Fantastic read, I really enjoyed reading this!
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