Review: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

The Bone Season

Author: Samantha Shannon
Series: The Bone Season #1
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Genre: YA Fantasy/Science Fiction
Format: ebook
Release Date: August 20, 2013
Source: Personal Library, Bought
Rating: 3 Stars
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Synopsis from Goodreads:

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.

My Review:

The Bone Season was an interesting novel filled with elaborate world-building, a strong female heroine, and many mysteries. This book has been raved about in the blogosphere. Everybody has talked about how utterly amazing this book is. So I was pretty excited when I finally sat down to read it. The Bone Season wasn’t what I was expecting. It felt like a bit of a science fiction/fantasy mix to me. For some reason I was thinking high fantasy so I was a bit thrown when I realized it wasn’t.

This world was extremely interesting, making this book one of the most unique I’ve ever read. We see a lot of different things here. We are in the near future. There are all different kinds of voyants that can communicate with spirits in various ways. There’s a crazy government, Scion, which hates voyants and wants to imprison or kill them. Then there’s the Rephaim, these crazy things that aren’t human, but they look like humans, but I’m honestly not sure what they are. So as you can see, there’s a lot going on. I’m not going to lie, it was a bit overwhelming at times, but as long as you pay attention it’s fairly easy to follow. There is also a glossary in the back of the book to help you with the plethora of unfamiliar words. (Thank goodness for my Kindle with this book. I looked up so many words in the dictionary/Wikipedia.)

All that being said, I’m going to be the black sheep here and say that while I did enjoy the book, I didn’t love it. It didn’t blow me away. I wanted it to. I kept waiting for it to explode in my face and shock me with its awesomeness. But unfortunately, for whatever reason, that never happened for me. Part of the problem was that it felt a bit slow to me at times. There was so much info presented that at times I was sitting there skimming (and then having to go back because I missed something important, not kidding you guys, every detail matters) because I just wanted the plot to move along.

The characters were likeable. The main character, Paige, was tough as nails and she developed a lot over the course of this book, but I never fully connected with her. Sure, I was rooting for her but I never felt an emotional connection. Warden, I was very intrigued by. I wanted to swoon, but I never did. He was everything I love in a book boyfriend. Dark, mysterious, powerful, but again, I just never emotionally connected with him.

I think the biggest issue was the overload of information. At times I almost felt like I was reading a text book. Obviously this just didn’t work for me. BUT it worked for a lot of other people. Almost every blogger I’ve talked to that read this book LOVED it. I am the black sheep. Here are some examples of people who loved it:

Anna @ Anna Reads

Kelly @ Belle of the Literati

Alexa @ Alexa LovesBooks

So take my word with a grain of salt. Definitely read some of these other opinions. Because I think it was just me. And I honestly, I liked the book. I know it doesn’t really sound like I did, but I promise that I did enjoy it. I just didn’t love it like I wanted to. Side note: This book is the first in a series of seven! This kind of intrigues me and also overwhelms me at the same time. Not sure if I will be continuing the series or not. Happy reading all!

Have you read this one? What did you think? Am I the only black sheep that wasn’t a huge fan?