Book Review: 'The Bone Season' by Samantha Shannon

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.

It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, kidnapped and drugged, Paige is transported to Oxford - a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite creature with dark honey skin and heavy-lidded yellow eyes. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But, f Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

 

Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook

 

There is no doubt that the imagination in this book is incredible. It's detailed, descriptive and highly-ambitious - but it all works. For the most part of the book, I was in awe of the world-building and how it was all woven together. Although, at the beginning it did feel like it was all being thrown at me which made it hard to initially get into.

 

There is a huge amount happening in this book - along with quite a wide(and definitely varied) cast of characters and clairvoyants. Paige commits treason just by breathing: working in the London Syndicate under another clairvoyant, Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for other dreamscapes as a rare type of clairvoyant. Paige was a strong, feisty and fiery female-heroine I was rooting for throughout the whole book and couldn't get enough of reading about. She is definitely one of my top fictional heroines - with a realistic love for coffee despite being clairvoyant. I think in many ways this one idea makes her much more relatable mixed in with her loyalty to the Seven Seals(the seven rare clairvoyants under Jaxon Hall) and the guilt she does feel when she does something wrong. 

 

When Paige reaches Sheol 1, it is discovered that she will be part of Bone Season XX and instead of her name, is now branded as: XX-59-40. A Bone Season is a time where more clairvoyants are brought into the city of Oxford - some after being held in the Tower for up to ten years. Paige is a rare type of Clairvoyant and unlike the others she is chosen as Warden's only-human. At first, Warden resembles an intimidating school-teacher on the first day. He is strict, un-moving and shows no sign of emotion. Although, I definitely grew to love Warden. As we got deeper into the novel and his past was revealed, Shannon keeps you guessing about his motives and actions. He was so complicated but I wanted to learn more about him.

 

Along with Warden there came his relationship with Nashira, which I found so exciting. It's hard to write this review without giving away too much of the plot: how Paige's relationship with Jaxon works, and her relationship with another voyant called Nick. There are also humans living amongst them - used as slaves to the Rephaim. There is mix of fantasy and dystopia in this novel and creatures like the Rephaim and the Emim are used to build up that element. I loved how far Shannon's imagination could take us: not only building a world that works but creating creatures to threaten it.

 

One of my favourite parts of this novel are types of 'flashbacks': through these you get to know more about Paige's history and the world she grew up in. The way voyants are hidden away and feared, along with how she dealt with other girls at her school.

 

When I got into this book there was a lot of action and the tension was built up throughout. I enjoyed it, and the world but I felt this book was too long. There were some thrown-in side-plots that I feel weren't necessary and didn't make much of an impact so, I wished they would have been cut so I could move back to the relationship between Paige and Warden. Their relationship was so intriguing - I couldn't help but love the way it worked(or came to).

 

Rating - 4 Stars

I really enjoyed this novel but the size was slightly intimidating. The imagination was fantastic though so, this is a book you should definitely give a try.

Review: 'The Arrivals' by Melissa Marr

Chloe knew she shouldn't have gone into the bar last night.. Now, in addition to a pounding headache and weak limbs, she's got the guilt of five years sobriety down the drain. When she wakes, she's not in the world she knows. She's in The Wasteland, a world populated by monsters and unfamiliar landscapes, in the company of people just like her, pulled to the Wasteland out of time and place:  for reasons no one knows or understands. Once there, though, their mission is clear: keep the peace, protect eachother and try not to die, because sometimes, after six days of death, you might not wake up.

 

But things are changing the Wasteland. And for Kitty and Jack, a brother and sister from the Wild West; Edgar, a prohibition bootlegger; Francis, a one-time hippie; Melody, a mentally unbalanced 1950s housewife; and Hector, a former carnival artist, the careful balance they've been keeping for years is about to be upset. All of them, and Chloe, are about to get the answer they've been looking for years: why have they been brought to the Wasteland? And will it be possible for them to get back home?

 

When I saw I could get this book for review, I jumped at the chance. I have been meaning to read something by Melissa Marr for a while and the premise sounds fantastic. The idea of a Wasteland populated by monsters, a variety of interesting and quirky characters making up The Arrivals and the suspense of why they are there, got me to immediately pick up this book when it arrived. To begin, I was instantly drawn in to this world. Melissa Marr has such a talent for building worlds full of detail, action and brand-new concepts. Getting to know the Wasteland is like navigating a maze: you will get there. In the end. In many ways, it resembles the wild-west but with a punch. This theme brought a western vibe to the book: along with the main protagonists Jack and Kitty being from this time.

 

There are a lot of characters in this novel, a huge cast of them to be in fact but, I felt some of them weren't as well-explored as the others. Brother and sister, Jack and Kitty along with another trustee Edgar were the most in-depth for me. I loved the fact Kitty was feisty and stood up for feminism in so many ways. Her attitude was outgoing yet, she took on a role of wanting to everything she can to protect those around her. As for Jack, he was loveable in many ways and very driven. These arrivals have all killed, but his determination made me like him. It was the way, despite being in the Wasteland for twenty-six years with his sister, he still felt he has to protect her. Edgar was your usual romantic - and quite edgy. The new girl on the scene, Chloe, was given a back-story which, compared to the other Arrivals, made me sympathetic. She was explored, understood and I got to know the reasons for her choices. Her character was definitely the strongest along with Kitty's. I would have loved to have seen more of Francis and Melody - who, just in the background, intrigued me. I felt the only thing I knew about them was from the blurb.

 

I did really like the creatures of the Wasteland and the way it was described. The whole aspect of the Wild-West town was captivating and easy to picture: while the creatures had a fantasy element to them. I loved the bloedzuigers and Garuda - whom I could never decide to trust. His personality was so unique - he reminded me of a 'Master' of sorts.

 

This is an adult book, and I soon found that out. There was a lot of swearing, some which was un-needed and that there were some certain 'scenes' that I had to skip until it was over. The aspect of the romance sometimes over-shadowed the fantastic world-building and the arrivals and, at by the end of the book, I'm still not completely sure of why they were even in The Wasteland. In many ways, I do believe this book would be best suited to older readers. Some of the language could have been easily replaced - but then, would you expect people from the Wild West to speak like we do now? I also would have wanted to see a bit more excitement at the end, where I found myself not getting a descriptive ending. 

 

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Goodreads