Children of Blood and Bone Review
It’s been a minute since I did a proper review, and what a book to pick back up with…
It’s impossible to be in any kind of YA circle without running into this one. I’ve been on my library’s waitlist for roughly 87 years and finally got the chance to pick it up. Once I started, I basically couldn’t stop.
In the West African-inspired kingdom of Orïsha, magic is real, the gods speak and dance, and white-haired divîners forge relationships with deities to perform miracles. After years of tension between the lighter-skinned, non-magical kosidán and the darker-skinned divîners, evil King Saran weakens the bond between gods and earth, massacring the defenseless maji and enslaving their children.
Eleven years later, kosidán are kings, nobles, and masters, while the remaining divîners toil, training in secret. After Saran’s daughter, Princess Amari, steals a scroll with the power to bring magic back, she escapes the only home she’s ever known to join Zélie, a warrior divîner with a tragic past. Along with Zélie’s brother Tzain and her lion, the girls begin a journey to return magic to Orïsha. But they’re pursued by forces that would rather keep the gods locked away, including Amari’s brother Inan, who has a secret of his own…
Some of the first books I reviewed on here were Shadowshaper, which Adeyemi names as an inspiration, and A Song Below Water. This book feels of a piece. From direct references to police atrocities and Black Lives Matter in an Author’s Note to the themes of oppression in Orïsha, Children of Blood and Bone is unflinching in its depictions of racial, cultural, and class-based brutality. At the same time, its protagonists are unapologetic in their black femininity, and their beautiful gods, magic, and language are based in Yoruba mythology.
Tomi Adeyemi is masterful with both trauma and relationships—friendships, familial, and romantic. Amari’s fear and Inan’s guilt as a result of their upbringing, and Zélie’s profound loss of her mother—not to mention the scores of losses we feel throughout, even among smaller characters—are painfully raw and never truly fade, even as they are faced head-on.
The sibling and parental relationships are so strong, down to the loyalty both Inan and Zélie feel for their fathers. And then we have the romance, which I will not spoil, but let me say this: things do get steamy at points, and I am here for it.
I give the sixth Book In My Basket 5/5 stars.