In The Bone Season, Samantha Shannon introduces us to 2059 London where clairvoyants are organized into crime syndicates and are committing crimes just by existing. Paige is a dreamwalker and we're following her along, learning about her relationships with the other people in her syndicate and her father when she is kidnapped and taken to Oxford, a secret city where clairvoyants are kept as slaves for the powerful race of Rephaites. We follow Paige as she tries to escape to return to her London crew.
Did you find that confusing? Well, imagine that, along with a confusing hierarchy of clairvoyant types, strange, undefined slang terms, and more characters than a Tolstoy novel. I really wanted to like this book. I wanted the world-building to immerse me. I wanted Paige to be a character I could really root for. I wanted Shannon to create a story I wanted to continue reading and would be sad to leave.
Well, I didn't get what I wanted.
The first third of the book was just an exposition dump with tons of place, people, and ideas just thrown at the reader. There was no attempt to ground us in any of the information, but it was just spit at us. I'd read the "next JK Rowling" comparisons and was hoping for something like the Diagon Alley scene when Harry was introduced to the magical world, but instead I got endless inner monologues about things that were never relevant and weren't particularly interesting. I thought Paige was going to be a cool, independent woman until I found out that nearly every time she was in trouble she would rely on someone else to get her out of the pickle. I was on page 410 when a really terrible thing happened that meant, even if I'd been on the fence about reading the next book in the series, I definitely wasn't going to read it now.
All in all, this was not a great reading experience. Thumbs down from me.
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