Book review | The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
This is more of a rant than a review, so I apologise to anyone who came for a short review or liked "The Bone Season". I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this book, and not the good kind I’m afraid. After reading some serious crime/ thriller books for a while, I thought I’d treat myself to a fun fantasy/ YA book to take the edge off. So, I chose "The Bone Season" because it sounded interesting and was about clairvoyance – I chose wrong. FYI: there are hella spoilers in this rant/ review.
Since this book uses lots of re-purposed 19th century criminal London slang and made-up slang, I’m also going to add a glossary at the end of this review because you might need it. I sure as hell needed a glossary too when reading this book but I didn’t realise there was one until about half-way through the book. So… this is my kind gesture to you. Onto the plot summary!
Summary
"The Bone Season" is set in alternative reality, dystopic London in 2059 and follows 19-year-old Paige Mahoney who is a special/ rare type of clairvoyant – a dreamwalker*. Like other non-rare clairvoyants (because everyone else is basic unlike our special Paige here), she commits treason just by existing. But that’s alright since she works for a guy named Jaxon Hall in the criminal clairvoyant London underworld, so like might as well commit actual crime and treason y’know. Jaxon is your typical unrelenting, cruel and obsessive type mime-lord* who likes to employ, or “collect”, special types of clairvoyants because apparently, he also wants to be special among other mime-lords and qweens. Oh, and Paige is his mollisher*. Anyways – Paige commits MURDER when she accidentally uses her skills and kills two Underguards* during a routine train check. Eventually, she is found, drugged, kidnapped and transported to a penal colony in Oxford called Sheol I run by the Rephaim*, a clairvoyant alien race from the Netherworld. Turns out every 10 years London sends groups of captured clairvoyants and amaurotics* to Sheol I to control and suppress the London clairvoyant population (when you think a dystopic government couldn’t get worse in YA, it does!), this is known as the Bone Season – cue credits. When the group arrives, each clairvoyant or amaurotic is picked by a Rephaim keeper to be their slaves – the slaves are then divided on a “class system” depending on their contribution to Sheol I’s society. Guess who our Paige gets picked by? That’s right, she gets picked by Arcturus aka Warden, the token mysterious hot dude. He is also the blood-consort* of Sheol I’s blood-sovereign*, Nashira, so like the guy’s pretty high on the hierarchy chain here which means that Paige is the luckiest one out of the group because he NEVER picked a slave UNTIL NOW and everyone reminds her how LUCKY she is that he picked her this season for like 3 chapters IDK. Wow, surprising. From here, Paige must survive in this new, harsh place if she ever wants to escape Sheol I.
Let me catch my breath here. If you made it this far, congratulations and I’m sorry that the summary was so. Fucking. Long. But trust me when I say that it’s important that all of that info dump was there because there’s a lot to unpack with "The Bone Season". Let’s start what I liked about "The Bone Season". I liked the concept of clairvoyance being considered “treason” or “criminal” because that can lead to lots of fascinating explorations into the criminal underworld dynamics.
Let's move onto what I didn't like about "The Bone Season".
Everything else.
Exposition and world-building are important to fantasy/ sci-fi books. It’s what helps you, the reader, discover the world and feel immersed in the story. However, with "The Bone Season" I felt like I was being TOLD everything about this world constantly instead of being shown the world. Because of the excessive info dump, I couldn’t get immersed or invested in "The Bone Season"’s world despite my interest in the clairvoyant concept. I really tried to get into it but I couldn’t. The world-building falls flat from the info dumping, unnecessarily long descriptions, and the awkward narrative structure. There was so much potential here for good world-building. Instead, I’m force-fed it and I’m sure no one likes to be force-fed anything.
Another point of contention for me was the narrative. It jumps from the current timeline to flashbacks and memories often, and I feel like this really slows the narrative down when it happens one too many times. These scene jumps happen a lot throughout the book, which is probably why I took so long to finish it. The pacing suddenly changes and it took me out of the original scene far too long until I eventually got back to the point of the original scene. It honestly felt like someone just cut and pasted these flashbacks or memory sequences of the book and tried to make it flow.
I have a lot to say about our special snowflake Paige. I’ve read other reviews that described her as a strong, badass heroine… and I guess so? Granted, Paige has been through a lot in her life. From witnessing an Irish riot, to moving to London with her earning-a-decent-income-despite-working-for-the-dystopic-government scientist dad and going to a prestigious college and getting a good education, to being employed in the criminal clairvoyant underworld and then sent to a penal colony and getting picked by the token hot dude. Like yeah that’s some hard shit, but I felt like she complained a tad too much (yes – she had every right to complain given her circumstances but there’s a tipping point for it, okay?). Then she’d do really stupid things and then trying to convince the reader that what she was doing was the best option. I couldn’t follow her logic or problem-solving skills on some decisions, so I didn’t feel invested or rooted for her. Eventually, towards the end of the book she had a moment of character development (YES! Hallelujah!) where she tells Jaxon she’s quitting because no one owns her. Great moment of reflection because that’s the thing she was internally fighting against and also with Warden technically owning her. But then she crawls right back to Jaxon for sOME fucking reason, and I lose my last brain cell reading this book.
Speaking of Warden, let’s talk about the romance. Haha OH BOY this romance between Warden and Paige had so many problems. Let’s start from the top. Um… they literally have a master/ slave dynamic even though it’s masked under a mentor/ mentee partnership, which makes the situation juuust a little bit better because he’s not actually treating her like a slave. But Paige still gets branded. And given mysterious pills and beaten for disobeying Sheol I’s law. An argument could be made that all of that was done to “protect” Paige and appear that they're following the colony’s culture to hide their cover – but it’s seriously still a master/ slave dynamic because Paige has the impression it’s mostly a master/ slave dynamic for most of the book. Not to mention that Warden forced the creation of their golden cord* that links their spirits together without Paige’s knowledge or consent, which enables them to know where the other person is anywhere in the world. As if their power-imbalanced master/ slave romance could not get any worse. Their “romance” was a slow-burn too but honestly it felt like I was being dragged in the dirt because every single interaction they had was shoved in my face. I was constantly reminded how SEXY Warden was and SCANDALOUS their attraction to each other was. It’s disturbing to see how close their “romance” was to Stockholm syndrome because of the circumstances the characters are in. And no, their “romance” isn’t a whole “it’s tragic” vibe. No, it’s power imbalanced, it’s manipulative, she’s 19 years old and Warden is 200+ YEARS. Seriously, what the actual fuck is up with this trope in YA books?? Can someone explain it to me because I don’t get it… it honestly makes me worried that it’s become such a well-known trope in YA books.
As we near towards the end of the book, the climax is a rushed riot action scene, Paige and Warden consummate their scandalous attraction to each other with a make-out session, and it ends with a poignant moment of Paige admitting she trusts Warden but now herself too. Cool.
Clearly, I didn’t enjoy this book. The hype around "The Bone Season" makes me wonder “why” it’s been regarded as the next big thing in fantasy as there are a lot of questionable character relationships and stiff writing mechanics (jumpy narrative, telling not showing, over-use of flashbacks and descriptions). Unlike character relationships though, writing mechanics can always be improved on. I do believe "The Bone Season" is a commendable effort by the author as their debut book – it was ambitious to say the least. From what I heard her following books are better but unfortunately "The Bone Season" has left such a negative impression on me that I don’t want to read the sequels. It’s a world that I don’t want to return to with characters I don’t want to root for. How this series will be stretched over seven books, I don’t know. If you’ve enjoyed this book and series, that’s great. It’s just not for me.
Until next time, stay golden ya nerds
- Del
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Publishing Year: 2013
Where to purchase it online: Booktopia | Book Depository
Glossary – terms and meanings referenced from “The Bone Season”:
- Aether: the spirit realm accessible by the clairvoyant.
- Amaurotic: non-clairvoyant person.
- Blood-consort: consort of the blood-sovereign (ruler) of Sheol I.
- Blood-sovereign: ruler of Sheol I.
- Dreamwalker: a rare type of clairvoyant. Has the ability to affect the aether (see meaning above) outside their own physical limits and has greater than average sensitivity to the aether.
- Golden cord: a link between two spirits – little is known about it.
- Mime-lord/ mime-queen: A gang leader in the clairvoyant crime syndicate.
- Mollisher: a young clairvoyant associated with a mime-lord/ mime-queen. Usually presumed to be either the mime-lord’s lover or successor.
- Rephaim: biologically immortal, humanoid inhabitants of the Netherworld, known to feed on the aura of clairvoyant humans
- Underguards: basically government police.
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