Book Review; The Bone Season

Hi readers, 

I'm finally posting up my review of The Bone Season! I'm currently reading the second book, though I've only read like two chapters, just not had the time at the moment due to writing lots of stories and working. I also found out that this is a series of seven books and the publishing dates for the others have been released. I thought it was a trilogy and now knowing there are more books coming, I am not sure if I will read them all. I guess it depends on how the plot develops and if the characters start developing probably. As normal, I'm going to try and stay away from spoilers, but there might be some due to what I want to talk about. 

I'm not sure how I found out about this novel, but it was like around the time it came out last year, but I just couldn't fit it into my reading stack. I believed it was a dystopia novel and I did add it to my list. Then I found it in a very cheap bookshop around March/April and brought it, thus breaking my vow not to buy any books this year! However, it's only now that I've read it. For me it's more a book that boarders a lot of genres; science fiction, supernatural and alternate history, but I wouldn't say it was dystopia because it doesn't feel in the same vein as says 1984 or Wool or The Hungry Games.  

The plot of The Bone Season is that nineteen year old Paige Mahoney is a rare type of clairvoyant, a dreamwalker which allows her to get into peoples' minds and effect them. She lives in London 2059, where clairvoyants are banned and have to live in secret. Paige works with a group of others in order to survive, but she captured after visiting her father and wakes up at Sheol I. There she learns that the government has been sending clairvoyants to an alien race which are training the clairvoyants to defend them and the plant from another alien race. Paige, of course, sets about trying to escape.       

The novel opens with a huge exposition about the world and clairvoyants and what's happened in the past. That alone would put most people off and unfortunately, there are other 'exposition dumps' and repeated facts throughout the novel. I get why Shannon has done this though and that's because it's the easiest and fastest way to give the reader information that they need to understand the plot. However, for me its a sign of lazy writing and a weak point in the novel. I understand that this is her first novel, she is under the age of thirty and the audience is teenagers, which might be the clues to the way this book is written. 

The other downsides to this book are that it feels a lot longer then it needs to be, it's over 400 pages long. I spotted parts that could have have been shortened or cut out and if there was less exposition that might have helped too. Paige seemed a bit static and I didn't connect with her like I would have liked too. The background characters and there seems to be too many of them, didn't develop well enough for me. Also, I read somewhere that there was meant to be a starting romance between Paige and her capture Warden, but this didn't come across for me, if it was intended, but it was probably more like Stockholm Syndrome and also the fact that Paige sees she can't escape without his help. Lastly, the aliens can drink blood and auras which they use to strength themselves and to me that just reminds me of vampires. I know there are other blood drinking creatures out there, but I didn't feel this was needed, just having them drink auras would have been fine. 

With all that said, I did enjoy the world building and the plot overall. I found it different to other things I had read. Though other reviewers say it's not different from books they've read, so I guess that depends on you. There is enough character development from the main characters, but for me it feels very plot led. I was fine with all the supernatural stuff to and I didn't mind the science fiction parts either. I can also understand with this being the first book in the series why it's been written the way it has and I just hope the next book is a bit different and more focused on the characters. It does seem like this book is dividing reviewers, so I'm going to leave it up to you to decided for yourselves, but I would recommend giving it a try.   

That's all for now and next week I'll be back with another December/Christmas Update.