Book Review: The Bone Shard Daughter

book review, fantasy, lgbtqia+

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺/5

*Pterodactyl screech*

Everyone needs to read this book! Everyone! Read it! Read it! Read it!

The Emperor’s magic has kept the empire together for decades, and his magical constructs—and their deadly secrets—keep the people subdued and docile. Lin, the emperor’s daughter and former heir, is determined to wrest power from her father. But first she has to remember who she is. Across the empire, a thief and a swordswoman reconcile with new powers and new world views as a dangerous rebellion and powerful magic threaten the empire.

I cannot say how much I adored this book, and how gently I tiptoed into it. The Goodreads blurb makes it sound like a standard fantasy and that cover is kinda bland (super intricate and gorgeous, but the color scheme is kinda blah). But this book! OMG. From the very first page I fell in love with the writing, the world, the characters, everything.

It’s hard to remake one’s view of the world, to admit to complacency. I thought remaking myself for you was hard enough, but doing that was something I wanted.

There are twists. There are turns. There is magic and politics and ruthlessness and above it all there are people with their own motivations and desires and drives.

This book has perfectly captured the essence of everyone being the hero of their own story, and each character had to confront the fact that they were not heroes but had all been misguided in some way, shape or form. Throughout there is the theme of the stories people tell themselves of who they are. From Lin telling herself the story of who she was as the daughter of the emperor before she was sick, to Phalue telling herself she sees the world as it is and that she’s a hero, to Jovis convincing himself that he has done enough and that the ends justify the means. And then there is mysterious Sand, who is just waking up.

Plus! There is wild representation. A diverse cast culturally and it has an established w/w relationship! Granted, that relationship is on the rocks, but it’s there and so fraught and real.

I didn’t want to realize how much I’ve hurt the people around me, and that’s what confronting my beliefs meant.

Oh! Did I mention the magic??? The maaaaaggiiiiiiic.

There are a couple different kinds! There’s the bone shard magic Lin is trying to learn, where the magic comes from people—as in shards of bone plucked from the heads of children when they are around eight and then transferred into monstrous constructs of varying intelligence that suck the life forces from the people they came from—and then there is another, more mysterious magic. Plus there’s the ancient magic of the evil overlords who used to rule before the empire.

It’s everything I love about fantasy with twists that did. not. stop. coming. I cannot wait for book 2!

We all tell ourselves stories of who we are, and in my mind, I was always the hero. But I wasn’t. Not in all the ways I should have been.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

Published by laurel • the suspected bibliophile

Published

27 thoughts on “Book Review: The Bone Shard Daughter”

  5. Omg this book was so fucking good. Just so good. Memphi!!!! Ahhhh! I just loved it! I fell in love with the characters, the world, the plot. Just everything about this book was so perfect. Probably one of my all time favorites of the year. I’ve been dying for something similar. I did read Call of the Bone Ships after and also gave that 5 stars, so if you havent read The Bone Ships I’d recommend it. Not quite the same as this but for some reason the two series remind me of each other.

    Liked by 1 person

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      1. I love Memphi sooooo much. He made that book so much fun! Ahh to have a little critter to want to protect! Seriously I couldnt get enough of him. So glad that in the end Lin had a creature too. Also, what to you envision him to look like? In my head he’s like half cat and half otter and has like ram horns and obviously cat like ears. But I really would love to see a drawing of him! I’ve gotta see if there is any fan fiction drawings bc I would love to see how other people envision Memphi!

        It was such a phenomenal read. I really just want the next book in the series because it was just so well done. The constructs! The twists!

        The Bone Ships is the first one in the series, but the sequel was one of my favorites of this year.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. It’s not often that I come across a book like this so I’m glad I’m not the only one that really loved this book! It’s so nice to be able to gush about an amazing book with other people who loved it just as much.

        Liked by 1 person

      9. The one thing that I learned from working at a bookstore is that people read a LOT more non fiction than I thought. Or at least they buy it. I don’t read non fiction at all so I guess it makes sense why I thought no one else did.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Omg I freaking loved this book!!!! Memphi!!! I need the sequel like now. I also gently tiptoed into this book with no expectations and was just blown away left screaming from the roof tops and dying for the sequel. Probably my favorite book of 2020!

    Liked by 1 person

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  7. Pingback: Sci Fi Friday: Phenomenal F-F-Fantasy – The Suspected Bibliophile

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