pages_and_procrastination 's review for:

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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*If you would like my boiler-filled thoughts than be sure to check out my read-a-long discussion posts. *

My opinion is probably the least popular, but oh well. This is the first book in what will be at least be a trilogy. There are a lot of things that happen or develop, but nothing significant until the last quarter of the book. Yeah - the last quarter. Therein lies the problem for me. It's really hard to say if its lazy writing or a really slow reveal. catalyst of things that will happen in the next book. To be quite honest, I am not sure if my opinion will be fully developed until after I've read the entire series. 

I get why people have loved this. There are a lot of things that Stewart does exceedingly well. Her characters always make you feel something. Not every feeling will be positive. Most of what I felt was distrust. I hated the emperor and I don't think he should remain in power. But, I don't trust Lin and I'm not sure she would do much better. She wouldn't do any worse but that's setting a low bar. She is selfish and too focused on proving herself to the emperor who has proven to be cruel and not worthy of respect. Then there is Phalue, Ranami, Gio and Bayan. And nope, I don't trust any of them. Jovis and Mephi are my favorites, I am secretly hoping that they turn out to be the heroes of the story. 

On to the plot of the story....... 

I am still unsure about so many things and nothing is made clear at the end either. We are told that the Alangas are the enemy, but not really why. There isn't any evidence that they still need to be feared. We know a lot about bone shard magic , but nothing about the Alangas' magic. We know that the emperor is evil, but we don't really know who the big villain is. (Since there are so many characters that I don't trust and that have their own motivations for going after the emperor, could they all be villains?) There are a lot of threads and a lot of possibilities. But there's nothing concrete to suggest a direction for the story. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since this is the first book. This is very readable. Even though you are not sure about (pretty much everything) where the story is going or who the bad guys are, this was well written and something always brings you back to the book. There are things that I wish would have happened on the page-like what changed with Phalue and Ranami. I am not happy with how things were settled with them. I still have questions, and I am curious. I am interested in seeing what happens in the next book. 

If you are someone who needs each book to have its own resolution and a story with a clear direction, this may be one where you wait so that you can binge the entire series. But, if not I would say that this is definitely one to check out.