Synopsis:
They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.
Now we rise.
Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.
But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.
Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.
Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.
Review:
This was my third attempt at reading Children of Blood and Bone and I just can’t get into it at all. I made it to almost halfway through this time but the story just wasn’t gripping me at all. So many of the chapters felt pointless, especially once Zelie and Amari meet, as they were basically describing the same situations. It felt like these brought the pace of the story to an almost standstill and even the action packed chapters weren’t enough to keep my focus.
This time I decided to give the audiobook a try as I gave away my physical copy a while ago. While I think the narrator did a good job overall, there just wasn’t enough difference in the characters voices for me to either understand whose chapter it was or who was speaking. Other than that, their voice was incredibly soothing, but quite slow even for normal audiobook standards. Which is probably why I kept losing focus while listening. I even had it at 2x speed at one point which meant my ADHD brain was finally able to keep up with what was going on. Sadly, this wasn’t enough to make me want to continue listening.
One thing I did really like about Children of Blood and Bone was the magical lore. I’m completely fascinated by it, but sadly not enough to finish the book. I know there’s an adaptation coming at some point so I’ll definitely watch that because I do want to know what happens. I just don’t ‘sit through 20 hours of audiobook’ want to find out. I was listening to this with the hours on Spotify, which I didn’t realise I was actually paying for, Spotify made out like they were free. So basically, I didn’t want to pay for them anymore as I have Audible so I don’t need them, and I didn’t have enough hours to actually finish the book. I already wasn’t having a great time with the book anyway so the lack of hours gave me the push to actually stop listening.
I really want to love Children of Blood and Bone but it’s just not going to happen. I’d say three attempts at reading a book is two too many. Wouldn’t you agree?
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