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It doesn't happen too often that I actually, really dislike a book. And I still can't really express how sad I am about the fact that it had to happen with this one.

Initially, I was wary about Children of Blood and Bone. Apart from the West-African mythology aspect, it didn't sound like it was bringing anything new to the table, and as someone who primarily reads fantasy, it's pretty hard at this point to find a truly unique story. But when more and more over-the-moon, positive reviews came flooding in, I suddenly got immensely excited to pick it up myself and see what the hype is about, so excited that, in truth, I was expecting to have a new favorite on my hands. Well - I was wrong.

The book started out very promising, with certain elements that are probably the only redeeming qualities for me. For one, the whole concept of the magical system with its different clans and the horrific oppression of an entire group of people was, in itself, not necessarily new, but due to the mythology influences, everything had such a fresh glow, and ultimately, even though it fell flat for me, I cannot put into words how happy it makes me that this high fantasy novel full of POC exists and is loved by such a broad audience.

Apart from that, I also enjoyed some of the more complex questions that Zélie and her companions had to try to answer. For instance, even though she starts out being all for the restoration of magic, throughout the journey she comes across obstacles that make her resolve crumble a little, that make her doubt that there is any peace to ultimately come from it. Whereas the entire plan felt a bit one-dimensional in the beginning, it was suddenly not so easy to tell right from wrong, and if you know me, you also know that I love dubious morality and somewhat... gray areas in terms of good and bad.

To me, everything started going downhill somewhere around the 200 pages mark. I suddenly noticed that I felt pretty disconnected from the characters (who I initially liked) and their entire adventure, because everything was just way too fast-paced for me to actually develop an emotional connection to... well, anything, really. Something was constantly happening, but it was always over so fast that I could barely figure out how I felt about what characters did or what changed their attitude toward something.

*narrator voice* And then everything went up in flames.

Because, oh boy, the romance. THE ROMANCE. tHe RoMaNcE?? It doesn't even deserve to be called that.

You see, I think what disappoints me the most is that I see so much potential. SO much. This could have easily been one of the most epic novels I've ever read. The same thing goes for the romance. Because apart from Zélie and runaway princess Amari (who is like, the only character I genuinely like, she had such a pure character development and is just my favorite), we also follow Amari's brother Inan, who believes a lot more into his father's gruesome ways than Amari does. As the former two set out to restore magic, he decides to chase them in order to keep their plan from succeeding, which, to him, should be accomplished by killing Zélie. (Who also happens to know that Inan himself is starting to develop some magical abilities, which he's desperately trying to keep a secret, since his father would kill him on sight if he found out, so ya know, being daddy's boy and all, he really wants her dead.)

I was HERE FOR IT. Because if you know me even better, then you also know that I am head over heels for the enemies-to-lovers trope, if it's well done. And the emphasis here is definitely on that last part. Because whereas I was imagining their mutual hatred (Zélie wasn't too big a fan of Inan's plan to kill her and generally him being the son of the monster who killed an entire people, basically) to maybe slowly turn into something else in, I don't know, book 2, I did not get that by any means. Instead, it took about two days of them working together (to save Zélie's brother and Inan's sister) for both of them to suddenly say things like this:

"We only need each other."

"Two days without her.
In her absence, the ocean air hangs heavy.
Every breath whispers her name."

I had question marks all over my face. And it didn't stop there. No. Because a day later, they come up with this beautiful plan to be together forever and revolutionize Orïsha as a power couple. It was one of the worst cases of insta-love I've ever read, worse still due to the fact that they literally wanted to wear each other's guts as necklaces about ten pages before.

Over the next... 200 pages... I was (I'm coining this term) in eye-rolling-hell. I was hoping for the focus to slowly move away from their "relationship" once they were separated again (or for one to murder the other as a plot twist, I really just wanted them to die), but nope, all they could think about was each other for the rest of the book. (view spoiler)[At one point Zélie is captured and tortured to her breaking point, and after being rescued, the first thing she does is have dream-sex with Inan. I screamed. (Inan's ability is to manipulate thoughts and dreams, essentially.) (hide spoiler)]

It was suck a freaking trainwreck. I considered dnf'ing the book multiple times, and I've never just stopped reading a book before. It was such a struggle to pick it back up every single time. I really just wanted it to end.

To top everything off, the ending was - of course - kind of cool, and I feel so cheated by it getting interesting and surprising on the last two pages, especially because I will not do another 500 pages of annoyance to myself a second time. I know that Amari is just gonna keep getting cooler exponentially and that she'll save the entire land one day, but I won't stick around to find out.

Now that that's off my chest, I'd like to forget I ever read this so I can go back to it being all epic and breathtaking in my mind. I'm glad everyone loves this book so much, and I bet you're going to get a nice sequel, but personally, I'll just slowly leave this meeting and pretend like all this never happened.