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A review by honeyreads1066
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I seem to be on a roll with brilliant fantasy books because this one also did not disappoint. I came into this with big expectations since this book was heavily spoken about and God was it brilliant.
This book is about identity, what makes a person good or bad and how far someone is willing to go to fix what is broken and find what is lost.
It begins with Lin, the daughter of an emperor who has become as paranoid as he is powerful. Lin competes with the Emperor's foster son Bayan for keys to opening the palace's many locked doors and eventually knowledge that will allow her to take over as emperor.
As this is going on we also follow Jovis, a smuggler who ends up with a strange companion when the island he's on sinks. This leads him further on a journey to find his missing wife with a lot of detours on the way.
The setting is so complex yet so realistic. Each island has its character and all feel like real places because of the people that reside on them. Even when you're only on an island for a moment, you're able to understand just how that island functions.
The characters themselves were incredibly complex. Every one of them was not wholly good or evil and they make decisions you don't necessarily agree with but this makes them significantly more human. Each character is full of depth and you understand just why every decision was made.
Despite this, the narrative changes I found a little irritating at times. This does usually happen when you have multiple narrative voices except here it was the opposite. Usually one of the stories isn't as interesting as the others but here I was so hooked on all of them that I got annoyed at times when there were large breaks of a specific narrative voice.
I love that the politics are not so black and white. Decisions that hurt some characters, save others and vice versa. It's nice to read something where judgements truly don't always end up with the outcome everyone wants. It's not all happy and that's brilliant.
One thing that did bother me was the magic system, though I found it unique and interesting in the end, it took a little longer than I would have liked to understand how it worked and who could do it etc. Despite that, I think it's well built and quite detailed.
I liked here how normalised things like sexualities were here, especially since it's in a fantasy setting. It's refreshing to see people being themselves and allowed to be themselves without the cliche hardships that are usually added in books.
Overall, I enjoyed this, I enjoyed all the stories and I'm excited to see where else each of the characters and decisions leads them to. I would recommend this and am eagerly awaiting the next one.
This book is about identity, what makes a person good or bad and how far someone is willing to go to fix what is broken and find what is lost.
It begins with Lin, the daughter of an emperor who has become as paranoid as he is powerful. Lin competes with the Emperor's foster son Bayan for keys to opening the palace's many locked doors and eventually knowledge that will allow her to take over as emperor.
As this is going on we also follow Jovis, a smuggler who ends up with a strange companion when the island he's on sinks. This leads him further on a journey to find his missing wife with a lot of detours on the way.
The setting is so complex yet so realistic. Each island has its character and all feel like real places because of the people that reside on them. Even when you're only on an island for a moment, you're able to understand just how that island functions.
The characters themselves were incredibly complex. Every one of them was not wholly good or evil and they make decisions you don't necessarily agree with but this makes them significantly more human. Each character is full of depth and you understand just why every decision was made.
Despite this, the narrative changes I found a little irritating at times. This does usually happen when you have multiple narrative voices except here it was the opposite. Usually one of the stories isn't as interesting as the others but here I was so hooked on all of them that I got annoyed at times when there were large breaks of a specific narrative voice.
I love that the politics are not so black and white. Decisions that hurt some characters, save others and vice versa. It's nice to read something where judgements truly don't always end up with the outcome everyone wants. It's not all happy and that's brilliant.
One thing that did bother me was the magic system, though I found it unique and interesting in the end, it took a little longer than I would have liked to understand how it worked and who could do it etc. Despite that, I think it's well built and quite detailed.
I liked here how normalised things like sexualities were here, especially since it's in a fantasy setting. It's refreshing to see people being themselves and allowed to be themselves without the cliche hardships that are usually added in books.
Overall, I enjoyed this, I enjoyed all the stories and I'm excited to see where else each of the characters and decisions leads them to. I would recommend this and am eagerly awaiting the next one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Murder
Minor: Racism