Dec 23

Dec 23 The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1)

About the book

Author: Samantha Shannon
Publisher: Bloomsbury

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

Buy and support indie bookstores (+ I earn a small commission):
Bookshop.org (print) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

Y’all. I am so mad at myself for waiting this long to read The Bone Season. It was exactly the kind of fantasy I was craving — a series that starts with a banger with a rich world and great plot and promises a good, long journey with a set of beloved characters over many books.

The Bone Season feels like an urban fantasy because our introduction to its world starts in London. The population is split into “normal” people and clairvoyants — a word that encompasses a huge range of abilities to leverage aether for different purposes. That said, there is a LOT of worldbuilding in the first few chapters, so just know that there’s a bit more work involved than your typical low fantasy would require. In fact, while I think the majority of this book worked well on audio, I would recommend making sure you have a print or ebook copy for the beginning so you can go slow and make sure you’re taking in all the info.

That intense worldbuilding process (to the point of almost feeling info-dumpy) is probably my only “criticism,” although I put that in air quotes because in this case, I really didn’t mind at all. I was just having too good of a time, and I was happy to give it the time and attention it required. After all, there are going to be 7 books (the 5th comes out next month) — if the world wasn’t rich and deep, it wouldn’t sustain itself. Plus, it was worth it! After a few chapters, I was IN and by the end, I was recommending it to everyone and sure this will be a new favorite series even though I was only one book in.

On to book two!!