Review: Children of Blood and Bone

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not for nothing has Tomi Adeyemi debuted as strongly as she has, taking the YA world by storm with this instant #1-bestselling fantasy epic. Richly steeped in Nigerian culture (Orïsha, the fantasy kingdom in which Adeyemi sets her novel, being an alternate Nigeria with the cities located roughly where their real-world counterparts would be - and the world map strongly reminds me of Dhonielle Clayton's Orléans too, because of the many islands), boasting a terrifically complex magic system (ten clans carrying ten different types of magic, though this book primarily focuses on two of them), and split between three disparate first-person POVs to showcase a diverse cross-section of Orïsha's society and the deep class divisions thereof, Children of Blood and Bone is nothing short of a pure masterpiece.

Over the years, I've heard many readers and writers say that long series debuts - and long debuts, period - are absolutely for no. But in this 500-plus-page opus, Adeyemi breaks that particular rule in all the best ways. I'm reminded so much of the best of such writers as N.K. Jemisin, Kate Elliott, and Nnedi Okorafor here...but I think perhaps the greatest influence on Adeyemi must have been Marie Lu's The Young Elites. The parallels between this book and Lu's are as strong as it gets - fantasy kingdom with ruling elites oppressing their people and condemning those with magical abilities to the underest of underclasses, forbidden romance between an up-and-coming magic user and a prince with conflicted loyalties.

My hope for Zélie, though, is that she doesn't come to follow quite the same villainous path that Adelina did in The Rose Society. She very well could, but I'd also like to think that unlike Adelina, Zélie has a stronger support system from the get-go, more anchors to keep herself better rooted morally.

Then again, though, the title for that second book - Children of Virtue and Vengeance - gives me some foreboding feelings about what's next for Zélie and company.

For sure, Children of Blood and Bone is a virtual lock-in for this year's Pinecone Award rankings, just like The Hate U Give was after I first finished reading it almost exactly one year ago. I don't wanna call it as the winner just yet - I did that with King's Cage last year and it wound up in fourth place - but if I did, I'd do so with considerable confidence.

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