Review: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

This book was such a force. I cannot believe that I waited this long to actually read it. I will undoubtedly be reading Children of Virtue and Vengeance in a much more timely manner, though the upside is have a much shorter wait for book two!

Tomi Adeyemi crafted an amazing story; this was a fantastic debut novel. The world building, in particular, was incredibly strong, I felt the culture and magic (and lack therefore of) on every page. She deftly painted a picture of where we were. I loved the place descriptions; they were so immersive and three dimensional. I could chatter on and on about how much I wanted to visit Ilorin; the descriptions were so interesting. If this movie is done right (which I am optimistic about because I am choosing to default to optimism for adaptations until otherwise notified) than seeing these places is going to be amazing. 

I loved Zélie and Amari. They were such different heroines with such different journeys to go on, though both have the 'finding the power within' type arc. Zélie made me laugh a lot in the beginning, she is brash and tough but has a very kind and fair heart, even when her kind heart is slightly begrudging at times. She was so full of anger, anger that was very very deserved, and even when I was not on board with her decisions, I always understood them. Also as a firm supporter of grudge-holding, I understood that part of Zélie.

Amari was also an amazing character; I loved being in her head. She is sort of timid and unsure of herself in some aspects, but she is also very sensible. Especially around the middle of the book I was very 'everyone listen to Amari, Amari knows all.' I found her emotional journey particularly touching. Her characters last few scenes in this book were killer. I was so invested in her. Especially when she was embracing her desire to become Queen. I hope we all get to bow to Queen Amari. 

Inan was also an interesting character. I felt so so bad for him; he had so much of my sympathy. He makes so many bad choices but, like with Zélie, you see exactly their root. I did not like his evolution from nemesis to romantic lead, it felt rushed, and I did not have enough time in the middle to go from suspicion to trust to believing a romantic plot was possible. As soon as the first hints of romance showed up, I knew how this book was going to end. I think if it was a slower process, I would have been on board (Matthias in Six of Crows has a similar storyline, and I bought into that), but I totally understood why this book needed to move so quickly through so many character journeys. 

Tzain is someone I want more from. In the first half of the book, he was kind of bland but protective, maybe a little unsympathetic towards Zélie at times but in a very typical sibling annoyance with your annoying sibling way. In the second half, he was kind of a ball of toxic masculinity not wanting his sister to be able to make her own decisions, being hyper-focused on Amari, and being unable to see the parallels in his behavior with Zélie's. I also wanted a more significant apology moment because he was super harsh to his sister. 
This makes it sound like I hated every male character, but one I liked was Roën! He is very upfront with his awfulness in a way I found refreshing. He was also surprisingly kind to Zélie on the boat. He does make every part of life into a joke, but I found him very endearing. 

Another similarity with Leigh Bardugo is the slightly heavy-handed foreshadowing. Everyone who died is telegraphed way in advance, and it made me be surprised by no one's fate. 

I also loved how seamlessly Adeyemi wove in the allegorical aspect of her story. She crafted her reflection onto our current world incredibly well. I saw the BLM inspiration and appreciated how she wove bits of modern horror and atrocities from the past 400 years into her plot. I am sure this was a difficult book to write, but it was so well done. 

I now have joined the tons of people eagerly awaiting book two. I am so interested in how this series will continue on! 

I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads and finished it on April 24th, 2019.