Review: The Bone Season // Definitely Didn’t Live Up to My Expectation </3

RATING :

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Well… it sadly wasn’t what I expected at all.

After all the hype surrounding this book, I had so much expectations but dare I say, it was highly overrated. The Bone Season has a great plot, but sadly there are so many things that didn’t work out for me. So I’m warning you, if you’re a die hard fan of this series and can’t take unpopular opinion, you probably shouldn’t read my review at all 🙂

The story takes place in Scion, a modern London where Clairvoyance is considered as crime. They are hunted by city police and every ten years, they were taken to this mysterious place called Sheol I. It’s located where Oxford used to be. There are seven orders of voyants and our protagonist Paige is one of the very highest order.

Let me tell you something, it was confusing as hell. The world building was complicated and I’m not saying this in a good way. There are too many types of voyants and so many slang words only they understood. It felt like they weren’t even speaking English! I had to keep checking the glossary and the voyants genealogy. It felt like reading school textbook. The first 100 pages were pure info dumping. There’s so much fancy terms and sets of rules that sent my head spinning. It frustrated me to no end! And yes, everything was explained more thoroughly later, but I hate the fact that I had to suffer through more than 150 pages of confusion before finally understanding what was going on. Not cool.

I also had trouble connecting with Paige. I’m sorry but for someone who claimed to be a criminal, she was too naive and I don’t like it. She’s such a special snowflake. A girl with special power who’s so convinced she could rebel and save the other voyants even after everyone told her about previous failed attempt at rebellion. She also wasn’t thinking clearly. Like, all she did when she came was antagonizing everyone and throwing tantrum. Hasn’t it ever occurred to her to PRETEND to play by their rules while secretly plotting revenge? I get that she’s tough, but why can’t she be tough AND smart?!! I mean, what good did it come from antagonizing the people in control of your life?

I mean, to be fair, I could see why people like her, but I felt what I felt. There’s nothing too special about her and even if I’m inside her head all the time, I didn’t feel the depth of her personality. The only time I felt close to Paige was when she had a flashback or dreams.  It made it SO HARD for me to root for her.

The other characters weren’t enough to keep my interest either. I felt indifferent toward Warden. His personality was as boring as white sheets and I didn’t understand his motives. I didn’t care about Julian or Carl or David or almost every other characters for that matter. The only group of people I care about was the Seven Seals. I love Dani, Nick, and Jax–Jax reminds me of Kaz— and unfortunately they only made little appearances. At this point, I was kind of rooting for the villains.

The romance isn’t appealing AT ALL. When Paige was chosen by the most special, most good looking keeper, I thought to myself “please don’t let it go somewhere I think we’re going”… but of course it is! There’s no chemistry whatsoever, not even believable, and most of all unnecessary. Not to mention she’s 19 and he’s like 200 years old. Ugh. Not into this kind of trope anymore </3

I seriously considered DNF-ing the book more than once.

After I got the grip of the world and how it works (and successfully ignoring Paige’s tantrum altogether), I started to really enjoy the book. I have to admit that despite all of the things I despise from this book, it does have a pretty great plot. Nothing too original, but smart, complicated, and brutal. All the things I love from a book. After almost 200 pages of struggling, the story finally piqued my interest. It was intense and fast-paced and all I wanted to do was find out what happens next.

However, the last few chapters were hard for me. My interest wandered and I spaced out even during the battle. It’s just that the characters and their reasons to fight weren’t enough to keep my interest and I just kept reading for the sake of finishing it. And even that was a struggle.

ALL IN ALL, The Bone Season has a decent plot and one of the most complicated (yet frustrating)  world I’ve ever read about. However, I’m not sure if I’m going to read the sequel (at least not anytime soon) because despite the amazing plot, reading a book in which I dislike the characters is always hard. It requires too much work and energy and I’m not feeling up to it, especially considering the fact that this book is only the first of seven. God have mercy.

Have you read The Bone Season? What do you think about it? I realized I’m on the unpopular side of the opinions here and that’s fine by me, I felt what I felt. Though I admit I felt nervous writing this review… however, I’m not alone 😛

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