Part of the 2019 Hugo packet for the Lodestar Award for new writers. No, this won't be my pick. I did finish it, but it was a slog.

Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.

It's got decent bones. but I couldn't figure out if it was science fiction or fantasy, the scene transitions were jarring, and I thought the passage of time in the novel didn't work well. I will not be getting book 2.

What a wild ride! This story was on a whole differently level from other ya fantasy! Outstanding new voice in this genre! I loved the setting so much and fell in love with the characters!

Mindblowing, amazing, stunning..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

How in the world have I sat on this review for so long? I read this ages ago, for the Hugo Awards, which this book won, by the way! I even selected this for my book club, and it's one of the few times everyone attending said they enjoyed the book.

Tomi Adeyemi has said that she drew a bit of inspiration from "Avatar: The Last Airbender," and she did so in a way that will attract members of that fandom, while also creating her own original world. There are different types of magic, which don't mix (so no one can control both time and animals, for example), and each have their own deity (which are actual Yoruba deities).

The story begins with almost no magic in the world, but soon the world is awash in wonder and danger. And there's also an enemy romance, which I cannot resist. And which I desperately hope neither love interest can resist, as well.

However, while Avatar was aimed at a pre-teen to early teen audience, the fully YA "Children of Blood and Bone" is more mature, and often more reflective of the problems of the real world. While Avatar had to be oblique about race issues, framing it as element-aligned kingdoms fighting, "Children of Blood and Bone" is ten times more direct. The villains are the light-skinned kosidán, who have stripped the darker-skinned maji of their magic, further subjugating them with high taxes, discriminatory laws, harsher punishments, and often full enslavement. In fact, the kosidán are well on their way to a full cultural genocide as the book begins, leaving heroes and readers desperate for any hope of renewal.

The ending was a huge shock. Not a solution, but the creation of an even greater problem. The perfect place to begin part 2 of a trilogy! Now, to decide, do I torture myself by reading book 2 now, or wait until I can complete the whole thing at once?

An exciting and gripping story filled with beautiful world-building and characters you’ll fall in love with.

A visceral and powerful exploration of Black identity in a fantastically constructed fantasy world reminiscent of pre colonial West Africa.

This is a extremely must read book for fantasy readers!
Tomi Adeyemi's writing style is breath taking including the plot and the well-written characters.
You won't regret diving into this book!

Interesting story involving characters I seldom see in fantasy books. The author did a good job with description.

For someone who doesn’t “normally” read teen books, I found this book to be an EXCEPTIONAL book. Tomi Adeyemi has created a world where you can deeply emerge yourself in and forget about what’s happening in your life! It’s a perfect mix of fantasy, adventure and romance. Can’t wait to Adeyemi to finish the trilogy! “Children of Blood and Bone” has become my staff pick and my greatest recommendations.

I really enjoyed this. I loved the writing style and plot. The characters all felt flushed out and individual. My main issue with it was just pacing. It did move a little slow at times in the beginning.

Cant wait to pick up the sequel.

WOW. OKAY, UH TOMI I NEED THE NEXT BOOK LIKE RIGHT THE HECK NOW.
Y'all holy crap, I read this book in 6 hours. Like started at 9pm and finished at 3am. It was so so good. I had super high expectations for this book and it lived up to the hype. This world is so beautiful, the writing is stunning and everywhere the story goes it is so easy to picture the setting and exactly what is happening. The characters are incredible and I love them all. Seriously such a cool plot and I was honestly thriving every second I read this.

Literally my one and only complaint (if you can even call it that) is that the love interest/pairing felt a little insta-love like to me which normally isn’t my favorite. However, the way it develops makes sense within the context of the story so I can let it go.

UMM?????? THE END???? WHAT JUST HAPPENED CAN I PLEASE HAVE BOOK TWO.

IM DEAD.

I read The Children of Blood and Bone since it was nominated for a Hugo award.Tomi Adeyemi's writing style, plot line, and characters are all engaging, while simultaneously making the reader think about what is right and how things should be. Thank you!

Good but not as good as the hype, or as a number of other west African inspired fantasy novels that have come out since. Not the best character depth or worldbuilding, and the passage of time felt confusing and uneven.

I enjoyed this and was excited to check out the sequel. Gained access to this through the Indigo Teen SPOTM decision group. I did feel there were some weaknesses to the writing -- felt somewhat tropey and predictable. BUT I am excited to see non-western centered fantasy in the market. This is what YA fantasy needs.

DNF

I listened to almost two hours of the audiobook, and I can't tell the two girls apart by anything but circumstance. While there's nothing wrong here, aside perhaps from the decision to use just one narrator, I'm not drawn into the story whatsoever. Nothing about plot, world, or characters has caught my attention.

I ended up DNFing this book. I liked a lot of the characters, especially Zelie--she was really kick ass, and the magic system is really unique, but with the amount of hype this book got, I was hoping for some deep world development. i wanted to see and experience a rich culture and lore. There was passion in the themes, but no connection to the world or events. I might try this book again in future, and I can see Leigh Bardugo or Sarah J Mass fans loving this, but I just didn't connect to it in spite of how important it is.

When books are compared to a favorite series of mine I am often disappointed. In the case of Children of Blood and Bone, I was more disappointed in its frequent comparisons to a certain magical school series when there are no real alignments. First of all, none of Children of Blood and Bone takes place in a school and there are real differences to magical abilities in this series whereas there is none in the other.

Despite my initial annoyance at the false comparisons, I thoroughly enjoyed this book for what it was, an epic set in a fantastic African setting incorporating magical alignments related to myths from the continent in real life. The characters are well-realized and relatable, the adventures are wondrous, and the plot is captivating.

I have the second book but refuse to read it until the release date for the third book is announced because being tormented by the cliffhanger at the end of the first book is the most I can bear until then :)

now. do i even need to say anything? this book is one of the most gorgeous fantasies i've ever read and i cannot wait to read the rest of the series and just live my best life

I got this as part of the Hugo Awards Voting Packet. I love this series! I look forward to reading the author’s next book.

While I am African American I am more American than I am African and well we all know why that is so I am not going to go down that road. And with that being said I did really enjoy this brief look into a black story being told by a black woman, but I think Adeyemi suffers from what a lot of us people of color suffer from.

Writing for the white gaze. And I get it, I'm not saying its a bad thing or that no one should do it. After all traditional publishing is still very much a bastion of Caucasianess, and they are the gatekeepers. But it still hurts that we still have to jump through those hoops. This was like getting a cake and then only eating the icing. She only gave us surface Nigeria. She cobbled together great sounding names without putting in the work to understand how the Yoruba language and culture worked. This was a California roll. Just enough exoticness to be a welcome departure from the usual, but watered down to make it palatable for the non-ethnic in the audience.

Just reading it from a purely YA standpoint this was a good first book in a series. The pacing is a bit wonky and like most books it takes this tome a while to find its rhythm and get on with the story. This book might have been a tad better if maybe 100 pages had been cut and the prose just a little bit snappier.

The world-building was rich, lush and s welcomed departure from medieval Europe. I am so tired of every fantasy being based on Tolkien. Like good grief people there is a entire world of settings out there! You are writing fantasy make up your own damnit! Martin took us on a roller coaster of settings, climes, peoples, places and religions for pete's sake! Why can't we have black people? Black dwarves? Black unicorns?

But let me stop before the "we can write what we want" brigade lit their torches and come after me.

The romance of course annoyed me to no freaking end. Like damn this is becoming a disgusting trend that I want every YA author to let go. Imagine how more creative we could force them to be if we just stopped letting them pair off our female main characters. And its only happening to the girls. If you read Percy Jackson yeah he likes Annabeth, but Annabeth tells him in no uncertain terms that protecting the world and doing her best is what matters more to her than her budding attraction to Percy, and her respects that and backs the hell off. You think if that story had been told from Annabeth's point of view we would have gotten the same things?