Sunday, March 24, 2019

Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi

Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of OrĂ¯sha, #1)Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I picked this up for its relevance to racial justice--the author goes into detail on that in the postscript. But I found it hard to connect those dots. There's a similarity to N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance series--people lacking magical powers misunderstanding and oppressing those who have them. That's as close as I could get.

Otherwise it's a fairly straightforward YA romance in a fantasy setting, but special in that the setting is West Africa. Some commenters have mentioned the strong, platonic friendship between the protagonist and the main supporting female character. There seems to be a strong expectation that those relationships become sexual, but that's not how it's played here. All the relationships are hetero and cis-gender, though there's a minor supporting character that could go either way.

Doesn't break new ground as a fantasy plot, but having different faces as heroes could bring in a new audience.



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