I was incredibly excited about this book because I want to see more fantasy books with people of color but unfortunately I was just unable to really get into the book. As much as I tried it just did not get my attention and dragged on too much for my liking.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of The Bones of Ruin in exchange for an honest review.

This book has an absolutely fantastic plot but unfortunately, I'm a character reader which is definitely where it's lacking.

The Bones or Ruin follows African circus performer in historical London who's harboring a big secret: she can't die. When she's discovered, she must join a dangerous tournament with other super-powered people for the entertainment of a high society secret society trying to find a leader for the apocalypse if she wants a chance at finding out what she can't remember about her mysterious past.

Right? RIGHT! That's so cool. I wanted to love this so badly but everyone felt like such a stalk character that it was really difficult to become invested in any of their stories.

Iris is clearly supposed to be a powerful MC and she has a few lines that are supposed to be and should have been huge and impactful, but since her personality is basically "perfect person who every man instantly loves and every woman wants to be besties with", it falls flat. Her original love interest, Jinn, is described as having a kind of enemies-to-lovers arc with her but they're both so clearly in love and openly affectionate that when they trade quips it feels like they're doing it because that's the cool thing to do in YA right now, not because that's their general dynamic.

Max, in my opinion, was the worst offender. I originally really liked his character but something about his humour style always seemed to clash with his actual personality and role within the story and for some reason every time he was on page, I couldn't help but get pulled out of the story and find myself day dreaming about The Gilded Wolves instead. Going into writing this review, I now realize that this was literally pitched as "for fans of The Gilded Wolves" which might explain why Max felt like a caricature of a character from there instead of one who belongs in this narrative.

This book had an interesting premise and characters. However, the deeper I got into the book, I found that the pacing was agonizingly slow. I appreciated the historical elements and the presence of colonial themes. The plot of the book appeared interesting but did not fulfil on that note. Further, there were so many side characters they all got lost in my head.