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kaziaroo's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
On the whole I loved this – the characters, the magic system, the mystery were all amazing (plus a queer-normative world!). I would have liked it if the setting was more fleshed out, maybe going more into the cultures of the different islands rather than them all feeling the same, but overall the story was immersive enough and the characters lovable enough to look past that. I loved Jovis and Mephi in particular, and I liked Lin too; there's always a difficulty in amnesiac characters as they have such a short background on which to build a personality and identity, but I think the author did an admirable job. I wanted to see more of Bayan, alas... :(
My only real criticism is that I felt the book would have been better without Ranami and Phalue's POV chapters. Their story had an interesting message and moral dilemma but it just didn't seem to fit and their chapters were quite dull to get through compared to the rest of the book. As a novella on their own, those chapters would have been fine, but I found myself skim-reading them to get back to Jovis, Lin and even Sand. Maybe more will come of Ranami and Phalue in the sequel, but I just couldn't get behind their relationship or find the point of their storyline or its impact of the overall plot.
My only real criticism is that I felt the book would have been better without Ranami and Phalue's POV chapters. Their story had an interesting message and moral dilemma but it just didn't seem to fit and their chapters were quite dull to get through compared to the rest of the book. As a novella on their own, those chapters would have been fine, but I found myself skim-reading them to get back to Jovis, Lin and even Sand. Maybe more will come of Ranami and Phalue in the sequel, but I just couldn't get behind their relationship or find the point of their storyline or its impact of the overall plot.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Grief, Trafficking, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Violence, Death, Gaslighting, Body horror, and Medical content
Moderate: Physical abuse, Racism, Animal cruelty, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Mental illness
Minor: War
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
There's a pretty large cast of narrators, listening via audiobook helped enormously with keeping track of them since there are three audiobook narrators to handle all the perspectives. Those performances are great, making helping keep the characters distinct even when the same performed voiced multiple characters.
The plot has several threads, following each of the main characters. The blurb implies that Lin is the only main character, but Jovis plays an enormous role (meeting all but one of the other main characters at various points), and the romance between Phalue and Ranami felt complex and real. Lin is the daughter of the emperor, trying to get her father's approval by getting back memories she lost in a sickness several years ago. Jovis is a smuggler who is trying to find his wife who was kidnapped five years ago. He ends up rescuing children from having their shards taken. Phalue is the daughter of a governor on one of the islands, and Ranami is her girlfriend who keeps turning down Phalue's marriage proposals because Phalue doesn't seem to understand the enormity of her privilege in comparison to everyone on the island. There's a woman called Sand who is trying to escape her current situation, I don't want to spoil anything about her but she seems set up to do much more in the sequel.
Lin has spent years trying to get her father's approval, and is frustrated by his ableist insistence that she's not whole unless she can get back the memories she lost. Desperate to get him to pay attention to her as she is and not as she was, Lin starts copying his keys to get access to rooms that might hold knowledge of the magic he should be teaching her. She's in competition with her foster brother Bayan since he regained more of his memories and seems to continually be one step ahead of her in getting the emperor's attention.
The relationship between Phalue and Ranami briefly dips into some toxic territory as Phalue doesn't seem to understand or know how to take seriously Ranami's concerns. It definitely helps that both of them are narrators, so their perspectives are shown directly at various points.
Jovis ends up with an animal companion after he saves it from the water during a disaster early one. Mephi is pretty cool and not annoying, which is a relief because sometimes I end up detesting animal sidekicks.
The magic system is based on using bone taken from the empire's citizens as children. The shards can be used to power constructs, and once in use they slowly drain the life force of their original owner. The emperor uses an elaborate array of constructs to do all the imperial bureaucracy which could be done by people, but he doesn't trust anyone else to do it right. This setup means that the way the lower classes are exploited is more than just cruelty and resource hoarding by the rich, but that their very lives can be taken, slowly, by an emperor they'll never see, if he happens to pick their shard from a drawer and use it to fuel a construct. I love the way the magic system is inseparable from the political structure and brewing uprising.
The plot has several threads, following each of the main characters. The blurb implies that Lin is the only main character, but Jovis plays an enormous role (meeting all but one of the other main characters at various points), and the romance between Phalue and Ranami felt complex and real. Lin is the daughter of the emperor, trying to get her father's approval by getting back memories she lost in a sickness several years ago. Jovis is a smuggler who is trying to find his wife who was kidnapped five years ago. He ends up rescuing children from having their shards taken. Phalue is the daughter of a governor on one of the islands, and Ranami is her girlfriend who keeps turning down Phalue's marriage proposals because Phalue doesn't seem to understand the enormity of her privilege in comparison to everyone on the island. There's a woman called Sand who is trying to escape her current situation, I don't want to spoil anything about her but she seems set up to do much more in the sequel.
Lin has spent years trying to get her father's approval, and is frustrated by his ableist insistence that she's not whole unless she can get back the memories she lost. Desperate to get him to pay attention to her as she is and not as she was, Lin starts copying his keys to get access to rooms that might hold knowledge of the magic he should be teaching her. She's in competition with her foster brother Bayan since he regained more of his memories and seems to continually be one step ahead of her in getting the emperor's attention.
The relationship between Phalue and Ranami briefly dips into some toxic territory as Phalue doesn't seem to understand or know how to take seriously Ranami's concerns. It definitely helps that both of them are narrators, so their perspectives are shown directly at various points.
Jovis ends up with an animal companion after he saves it from the water during a disaster early one. Mephi is pretty cool and not annoying, which is a relief because sometimes I end up detesting animal sidekicks.
The magic system is based on using bone taken from the empire's citizens as children. The shards can be used to power constructs, and once in use they slowly drain the life force of their original owner. The emperor uses an elaborate array of constructs to do all the imperial bureaucracy which could be done by people, but he doesn't trust anyone else to do it right. This setup means that the way the lower classes are exploited is more than just cruelty and resource hoarding by the rich, but that their very lives can be taken, slowly, by an emperor they'll never see, if he happens to pick their shard from a drawer and use it to fuel a construct. I love the way the magic system is inseparable from the political structure and brewing uprising.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Grief, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Ableism, Racism, Bullying, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Confinement, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, War, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
Minor: Death of parent, Drug use, and Vomit
tahsintries's review
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Colonisation, Murder, and Physical abuse
Minor: Confinement
noellelovesbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Content Warnings: Grief, loss, body horror, nightmares, murder, abuse, and mention of sexual assault.
The final prompt for the “Read Your Own Adventure” Tiktok readathon was to read a book that intimidated you…so I chose this one. There’s no real reason this book intimidates me but as it’s been on my shelf a bit and it is on the thick side…I figured it fit the parameters and dove in.
Having first heard about this book last year on Booktok I’ve been excited to read it for a while…especially since, although I’ve heard praise, I’ve never heard any specific details about the story so I had no idea what I was jumping into. I, luckily, follow fantastic Tiktok creators who are good about giving spoiler-free reviews or who warn before diving into any spoiler-like content. When someone gives away the entire story before you’ve had a chance to read it…it takes the joy out of discovering a book’s secrets on your own.
Like many of my favorite fantasies, we follow multiple [5 altogether] people around who seem to have no direct connection…and as the story unfolds further we see how close everything in fact is connected. The primary narrative is that of Lin, the Emperor’s daughter, as she attempts to prove to her father that she should be chosen to take the throne after him.
As we follow Lin we get to know more about the fascinating and complex system that is bone shard magic. We don’t get much in the way of world lore, though there are hints and little details, so I’m hoping we get more in book two to better understand how, and why, bone-shard magic exists.
Overall I really enjoyed the story and look forward to picking up book two to see what more we learn about bone-shard magic and the world it affects. If you’re looking for a fantasy novel with equal parts magic and mystery I recommend giving this book a look.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Body horror, Grief, Physical abuse, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Sexual assault
gayghostprince's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Child death, Animal death, Death of parent, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: War, Blood, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Classism
Minor: Grief, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Trafficking
thewordsdevourer's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.25
this isnt a bad read, but i simply expected more. the bone shard daughter has an interesting premise, but the execution leaves more to be desired.
my fav things abt this book are its unique and compelling magic system - w/ constructs and bone shard magic, one that contains very real consequences for the common folk, w/ real political implications - and, imo, its star character, jovis, a reluctant hero w/ humanity, heart and depth, and whose rapport w/ his 'pet' mephi i find very cute.
other aspects, however, i find a lil lacking still. the worldbuilding comes in stops and starts, glimpses that dont quite yield real depth. many things that would shed more light on the empire and its workings are glossed over, such as how, exactly, the constructs communicate back to imperial, what their relationships w/ real soldiers are like. in short, the world seems like quite a big one, but the setting and story feels surprisingly spare, sparse, and narrow in scope.
im also impartial to many of the characters, particularly lin, whose story isnt as exciting esp considering she's the titular character. this thereby affects my emotional investment, leaving me unaffected by the story. often, i also find the characters' actions illogical and frustrating; esp the weird not-killing-despite-knowing-they'll-come-back-to-bite-your-a55-later reasoning, and poorly planned fights, esp the one in the palace w/ the emperor. basically i feel like the characters dont use their heads enough even though they def should.
though i seem to have quite many complaints, it cant be denied that this book has its high points, and it can get very fun and adventurous. for that - and its interesting magic system - i might check out the sequels.
my fav things abt this book are its unique and compelling magic system - w/ constructs and bone shard magic, one that contains very real consequences for the common folk, w/ real political implications - and, imo, its star character, jovis, a reluctant hero w/ humanity, heart and depth, and whose rapport w/ his 'pet' mephi i find very cute.
other aspects, however, i find a lil lacking still. the worldbuilding comes in stops and starts, glimpses that dont quite yield real depth. many things that would shed more light on the empire and its workings are glossed over, such as how, exactly, the constructs communicate back to imperial, what their relationships w/ real soldiers are like. in short, the world seems like quite a big one, but the setting and story feels surprisingly spare, sparse, and narrow in scope.
im also impartial to many of the characters, particularly lin, whose story isnt as exciting esp considering she's the titular character. this thereby affects my emotional investment, leaving me unaffected by the story. often, i also find the characters' actions illogical and frustrating; esp the weird not-killing-despite-knowing-they'll-come-back-to-bite-your-a55-later reasoning, and poorly planned fights, esp the one in the palace w/ the emperor. basically i feel like the characters dont use their heads enough even though they def should.
though i seem to have quite many complaints, it cant be denied that this book has its high points, and it can get very fun and adventurous. for that - and its interesting magic system - i might check out the sequels.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Murder, Blood, Death, and Violence
Minor: Kidnapping, Racism, Child death, and Physical abuse
elizajaquays's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, and Violence
chalkletters's review
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
After a run of book club books I was immediately excited about (‘muggle goes to dark Hogwarts’, 'the navy with dragons’), we’ve now hit a few books where the premise doesn’t particularly hook me. Which isn’t to say that the books themselves won’t be good! Only that they can’t be summed up in a catchy elevator pitch.
The beginning of The Bone Shard Daughter left me a little dubious. In good news, it came out of the gate at a good, quick pace, with things immediately happening. In somewhat less good news, it seemed to centre around an amnesia plot. When I took a creative writing module at university, it seemed that everyone wanted to be write about either being in a coma or having amnesia, so my history involves having read it handled pretty amateurishly.
Fortunately, Andrea Stewart was anything but amateurish. She managed perspective shifts in a way I haven’t seen before, and yet they immediately felt right. I didn’t even notice until the end that some perspectives are written in the first person while others are in the third, and that’s the kind of thing that jarred me out of The Light Between Oceans pretty badly!
The Bone Shard Daughter is as much a mystery as it is a fantasy novel, in large part thanks to that amnesia plot I mentioned. I was always trying to work out who characters really were, how they were related to one another, why they were acting in the way they did. I’m not a reader who constantly tries to guess where books are going, but The Bone Shard Daughter really caught me up in the way a murder mystery does. It even has what you might call 'a second body’ partway through. My notes are full of questions: 'Is X causing the memory loss?’, 'Is Y related to Z?’. Many of them get answered, but there are enough left over that I really want to read the next book in the series.
Because there was so much else going on, the character development didn’t stand out to me immediately. It was only towards the end that I really realised just how integral it was to the novel. I can’t talk about the intensity of Lin’s character arc without spoiling a huge chunk of her plot, so I won’t, but Phalue’s reluctance to come to terms with her privilege is something I haven’t seen before in a fantasy novel. The Bone Shard Daughter compares favourably with Witchsign because I’m supposed to dislike the bad parent, rather than being expected to sympathise with him. I found that much more effective.
The Bone Shard Daughter was a very different kind of fantasy novel, so much so that it feels weird to compare it to other book club books that I’ve enjoyed. That said, this is only the third time I’ve immediately added the next book in a series to my 'want to read’ list, which has to say something!
Content Warnings
Minor: Murder, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Child death, and Kidnapping
widdlemun's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Grief
Moderate: Child abuse, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, and Murder
Minor: Child death, Pedophilia, and Hate crime
kaseybereading's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse