Le Sigh

The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon

I wanted to like this one.

I really, REALLY wanted to like it.

But.

Ugh.

I don't know. I suppose it's really not fair to brand a debut author "the next JK Rowling" before her first novel has been officially released. That's a lot of pressure. And after hearing that, like a lot of people, I went into this with very high expectations.

Yeah.

Big mistake.

I found myself extremely frustrated with this novel from the very beginning. It was so unnecessarily complicated. And I don't think I'm a particularly dense individual, but I just found the language and the concepts so hard to grasp. I still can't even picture what a Rephaite looks like. Did I miss the description? (Lamps for eyes? Giants? I just kept thinking of a cross between The Beast and Elijah Wood a la Sin City.) *shivers*


I felt Paige's narration fell a little flat -- while I get that she's supposed to be hard as fuck er whatever, her voice made it very difficult to feel any suspense. I read through the "action" scenes with my feet up as I slowly sipping my tea, shrugging to myself. There was just nothing. I wanted white-knuckle book-gripping, edge of my seat, heart-pounding, something... but the only time I think I jumped was when I accidentally spilled some tea down my shirt (Whatever, man. It happens)

And oh, let me tell you. When your method of creating suspense is to just omit details that should really freaking be answered, then I get pissed. Details that any person with half a damn brain would not give up until they had explanations for. And I know there were a few (thousand?) examples through the book, but the one that really pissed me off was right at the end, so it's still fresh in my mind.

But when Seb tells Paige "Don't go after her... all they want to do is suck us dry. And there's a secret." She's all like "What secret?" and when he says he can't say, she just LETS IT GO. Really? REALLY!? That had got to be the laziest way I've ever seen an author create mystery, like that juicy little nugget right there is really going to make me want to come back for more. Like yeah, there's a secret but you can't find out because you must PAY FOR MY NEXT BOOK FIRST. Guuuuuh. *tears out hair*

(show spoiler)


Anyway. I get that this review is a little disjointed and rant-y, but to be honest that's how I'm feeling right now. I wanted so freaking badly for this to blow me away. I WANTED this to be the next Harry Potter. I wanted it SO. FREAKING. BAD.

But it seems I'll continue on the search to see if there's anything out there that will ever fill the hole in my heart left by Ms. Rowling.