Review: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (Chantelle)

Title: The Bone Season (The Bone Season #1)
Author: Samantha Shannon
Genre: Fantasy

Goodreads rating: 3.88 out of 5.00 (710+ ratings)
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It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city—Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly—as soldiers in their army.

Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

Review by Chantelle



The Bone Season was a book that screamed, HYPE! HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE. A comparison to J.K Rowling heeeere, most extraordinarily-talented-amazing-revolutionary-paradigm-shifting author over theeeere; basically, it was being predicted to be the next worldwide best-seller. And we all know, with hype comes expectations, and more often than not, these expectations aren't met. I mean, we book-nerd consumers are tough. These authors have to compete with the power of our imaginations, and when a book is built up so much, we expect no flaws (somehow), for the plot to blow our minds (somehow), for the swooniest of swoony romances (somehow)...

BUT! I must admit, I was not disappointed at all. In fact, the more I read, the more excited I got. This is no thin book, the size intimidated me at first (nearly 500 pages) but it completely sucked me in and soon enough, the chapters were flying by. WELCOME TO SCION. dun dun DUUNNN!

The world building in this novel is incredible, it's definitely the most complex aspect of this book, and the thing that will inspire the rants, and the lost nights of sleep. One of the greatest strengths of this book, is that the blurb gives us the barest hint to the world that is Scion, so the reader discovers it completely anew and each revelation is certifiably squeal worthy. I don't even know where to start, I don't think I could do it justice. It literally takes a couple hundred super exciting pages to discover one side of Scion, no doubt allowing the rest to slowly unravel in this 7 book series. Everything in it is so well thought out, the amount of detail is phenomenal, Samantha Shannon has created a world entirely unique that she knows down to the minutiae. When you open the novel, there is even a double page feature of charts showing 'the seven orders of clairvoyances' detailing the types of people, their abilities, how common they are, categories they fall under and so much more. So many charts I didn't understand. It built intrigue, so much intrigue. Basically, plot holes, you will not find.

The Bone Season revolves around this idea of clairvoyance; there are poltergeists and tarot cards and spirits and all these other supernatural aspects that do not usually interest me at all. But instead of making me feel eerily uncomfortable, Shannon's completely original style in HOW she blended these aspects together completely captivated me. Second to world building and originality would be her characters. What is with bad ass heroines and fantasy just going so well together?! It's fantastic, and Paige did not disappoint. This novel is told in first person, and even though I usually prefer fantasy in third person, it really worked in Shannon's favour because it preserved the mystery of the novel. If we only get Paige's POV, Scion's secrets are safe until she discovers them. And WARDEN! AAHHHH love him, love him so much. No instalove, hooray! Adversely, the romance wasn't so dragged out in the face of six more books that I got bored.

I'd like to emphasise, there is nothing boring about The Bone Season. It's chunky and magnificent and will appeal to young adult and adult readers alike. No matter what your views on this book are, from the blurb, from all these reviews, you won't really understand the world of Scion until you read this from cover to cover. The power of world building should not be underestimated, Samantha Shannon did a formidable job.

Insanely Creative 

Ratings
Overall: 9/10
Plot: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Cover: 4/5