Spoiler-free
And so the Bone Shard trilogy comes to an end and I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't think I've ever been happier to finish a book. This one took me a HOT SEC to get through and has really slowed down by reading in general, so I'm excited to get back on track now... surely?
Anyway, to give you a quick recap of my thoughts on this trilogy so far: Book one of Bone Shard (or The Drowning Empire) was such a fun read and introduced some unique concepts and twists of traditional fantasy tropes. I blasted through it and loved it for all its strengths and flaws. Book 2 slowed the pace down and while this allowed more breathing room to get to know the characters, there was also a lot of filler and it very much felt like a typical middle book in the trilogy. So, now we are up to book 3 and the conclusion to the trilogy and I'm afraid to say... It sucked.
It pains me to say because I did really enjoy book 1 in this series but everything after the first book felt made up. I just didn't believe the direction the series went in and it very much felt like we were just making shit up as we go along. This would have served much better as a standalone for me - one with a punchy twisted ending. Everything after the fact just felt rushed, stale, contrived and honestly, pointless.
Given how exciting the first book was, it surprises me how bland and dry this story ended up being by the end. I wouldn't even say the overall ending is bad in the sense that it ruined the entire series, but more of a steady downward trajectory where I kept thinking - Okay? so what are we doing here?
Around the halfway point I opted to immersion read most of the rest which definitely helped me get through this and honestly, enjoy it more. The narrators were average but all the characters sounded like they were in YU GI OH! and that really made me smile and switched up the whole vibes for the better.
Oh well, the series does have its plus moments. Andrea Stewart has a talent for writing cinematic action sequences that feel like an anime in your mind. While the climax of book 2 boosted its rating up for me, by the end of book 3 I just found myself too disconnected to even care, but the individual actions scenes are still pretty cool.
This was a buddy read with Chad, so I still had fun reading through this book but ultimately it fell flat on its face. The lack of direction showed and you could tell how much of a struggle it was to write for Andrea Stewart, which she does state in her author note at the end. This note was actually really cute and despite my bad review for this particular book I'm open to read future books from Andrea Stewart.
🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑- 2 Stars
Stick around for Spoiler Chat and Chad Takes
Spoiler Chat
I was completely baffled reading the first few chapters of this because what do you mean Jovis is dead? Or a ghost? Or a construct? Maybe I just completely forgot what happened at the end of Book 2 but I wasn't aware of any of this, or even him being away from Lin? I got over this pretty quickly though and just accepted that this was where we are at now and went along with the ride. To be honest, I was thankful that Jovis and Lin were separated because that romance was pissing me off.
Jovis was a fun charismatic character in the previous books but a lot of that personality was missing in this one and he's not the only one. I feel like with the exception of Ramani none of the characters had any real lease of life or spark it was just people doing actions. You could probably explain this with Jovis having ossalen shards and commands in him, which alters his personality or some shit but I don't care because it wasn't interesting to read. And besides, these shard commands in Jovis were kinda useless anyway because he kept finding loopholes just by changing how he thought about the command? He literally shifted his perspective and then got around it. Every time this happened was complete bullshit and I didn't buy it one bit.
It really pissed me off how everyone turned out to be Alanga. This could well be a big contributor to what made this story peter out and fall flat. It just became really tedious with them popping up here there and everywhere. It's like that saying if everyone is special then no one is special.
I love the search for a mythical sword trope, but this whole sword thing came outta no where and felt very half baked. It's a shame because I was quite excited for it but whatever. It just seemed like a last minute add on to make a plotline for a third book. I guess that's the problem. It felt like things were forced into place just to have this series be a trilogy when it's really not necessary. This could have easily been an effective duology or even a standalone.
I honestly can't even be bothered to talk about Lin because what is there even to say? Yes, she had no personality in book 1 but it made sense with the twist of her being a construct. Also, there was enough mystery surrounding her POV chapters that it was never boring. Now she's the Emperor and there is literally zero mystery, so it's all boring. In general, Lin sucked as a POV character to follow. She did look badass with that beast of a construct though.
On the other hand, I did enjoy Ranami's character by the end of this one. She really stook it to the man when she gave that big motivational speech and I'm glad that she was ultimately in charge of sorting out the council of leaders because she is by far the most suited to do so.
Nisong was probably the only interesting character by the end and I found myself rooting for her. Her relationship with Ragan was kinda hot because you could tell it was lust over love and honestly that's fair. Nisong has had it rough and I don't blame her for wanting some sexy time and also to overthrow Lin as Emperor so all the power to you. Ultimately she goes to the 'good' side and reverts back to being Sand before dying, so whatever.
Jovis also dies but then is resurrected using a similar (or maybe the same idk) pool that resurrected Ayesh or something earlier on. Honestly I can't remember much about that already as it felt so long ago. (Because it was as this book took me forever to get through!)
Anyway, I HATE the resurrection trope. It just feels so cheap to bring characters back to life and drastically lowers the stakes for the rest of the story. Nevertheless, it was pretty sad how Jovis lost his memories when he was resurrected, not because of his romance with Lin, that can fuck off, but because of how confused Mephi was by it all. It was dead cute how he refused to leave his side even when he didn't know who he was. Animal companions truly make any story better so good on ye Mephi. It was actually really cool watching how the ossalen evolve over time and by this 3rd book it was like a full on dragon rider story which is pretty badass. It's been ages since I've read a dragon rider book, so this has firmly planted the seed.
I'm aware I'm probably missing out a lot of key scenes but I'm more than ready to put this series to bed now. It's a shame it's ended up being so bland after such a promising start, but oh well. Time to get on to Age of Madness, which I have very high hopes for.
Chad Takes
Broadly speaking this series has been an alright read but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to have finished it. Mainly just cause I was ready for something else at that point.
Was not expecting all 5 of the POVs to make it out of this alive - and even with Jovis’ ultimate amnesia it seems like there’s gonna be a way back for him. Obviously hugely glad Ragan got his head chopped off and also appreciate Dione eventually becoming a bit more reasonable.
I like the idea of ossalen being the islands just cause it made the whole mining too much witstone thing make sense I guess. Thing is the main thing that was kinda bland about this series was how much discussion there was about witstone and Caro nuts - I know this seems like a silly point cause it’s quite a huge driver of the plot but I just didn’t really feel that bothered about the bog cough aspect of all this. It ultimately just didn’t seem like that big of a deal for me.
Anyway her acknowledgements at the end were wonderful to read and made me really appreciate what I’d read these past few months even though I didn’t completely vibe with it. First broken binding sub series over with.
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