 Alright, so I just finished reading Children of Blood and Bone. It's actually been requested a lot, surprisingly. So I was thinking that there must be something about it that's like different or unique, or that makes it so terrible or so good that I just have to check it out, and it's not. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. It's very rare for me to come across something that I read that has absolutely nothing original in it, but Children of Blood and Bone is like that. Now, let's not say it's the worst thing I've ever read, because it's not, and, you know, obviously I'll get into a little more detail on that, but it's just... I've seen everything here before. Like, if you have read any young adult fantasy ever, you have read Children of Blood and Bone. There is a main character who's a teenage girl, who has some sort of special magical powers, and she incites a rebellion against an oppressive regime. Or, rather, I shouldn't say she incites a rebellion so much as she is fighting against it herself. Like, this one doesn't really have an organized revolution the way a lot of others did. And the main character girl, her name is Xaeli, also runs into a couple of other people who are POV characters in the book and who are part of the oppressive regime. And they make Xaeli realize that, oh, maybe I shouldn't judge these people so harshly, because, you know, I know they benefit from the suffering of me and my people, but they're kind of nice. Their dad was mean to them, and it... I mean, there's just not anything here that I haven't seen before. Now, again, it's really not the worst book ever. I think there's a solid 10-15% that I think is genuinely pretty good. Like, uh, mostly at the beginning when we're getting introduced to the world and everything, which I thought was neat, and then there's one or two action scenes sprinkled out that I also thought was pretty good. But other than that, it's just either boring or stupid. Mostly boring, which is better than stupid. And honestly, it's only boring because I couldn't get into it. Like, I've seen this before so many times and I just didn't really connect with the characters. They didn't click with me. If you are someone who did like the characters or you haven't read this sort of thing before, I think you would find it less boring because the plot is structured fairly well, I think. I think there's usually something interesting happening, and it suffers a lot from being split into three POVs because, look, I've said it before, I'll say it again. They don't feel different from one another. They all feel kind of the same. It's annoying, and it's even worse in my case because I listen to it as an audiobook, and they had the same narrator narrating all three. Like, at the very least, they should have had a man to do Enan's parts because it was weird having a woman's voice describe him. It was just odd, okay? But I really don't think that this book is too long or too short for the story it's trying to tell. Like, it is a decent length for what it's trying to do. I think, I'm not gonna say it's the perfect length, but because it's hard for me to judge. Again, I wasn't into it, but if I was into it, I might say, yeah, this was the perfect length. I also liked that this takes place in a world that's inspired by West Africa and West African mythology rather than medieval Europe, so, I mean, it's something at least a little bit different. And like I said at the beginning, you do get a sense of what it's like for normal people to live under this regime and how much it sucks. The main area where this book really falls apart, though, are the characters. Now, I think Xaeli, the one who is like, not exactly the chosen one, but kind of the chosen one who, again, doesn't exactly lead the rebellion, but kind of leads the rebellion. I think she's okay. Like, I do feel some sympathy for her because she's had to suffer for years and she's lost members of her family and she really wants vengeance and all that. Again, nothing new here, absolutely nothing you haven't seen before, but I think that she is the most sympathetic of the three. And then we have Amari and Inan. Now, Amari and Inan are siblings, their brother and sister, and they're the children of the king. But Inan is actually supposed to, he's the heir. He's going to become king after his father dies and look, both of them kind of sort of work with Xaeli for a while. And actually, you know what, from this point forward, I think I'm just gonna have to do spoilers because it's very difficult to talk about this without spoiling things. So overall verdict, it's kind of mediocre. I think that it really fails to deliver at some of the themes it's trying to deliver, but it's not the absolute worst thing I've ever read. So I think if you're looking for something exactly like this in this genre, then you might enjoy it. Everyone else, just stay far away. It's boring. Now, spoiler stuff, Amari and Inan basically get wrapped up in this whole thing with Xaeli and long story short, they find a way to bring magic back because the people that Xaeli is a member of, their ethnic group I guess you'd call it, are called the Diviners, and they're the only ones who can use magic. And somehow years ago the king was able to destroy magic and make it so people couldn't use it anymore, and Xaeli and Amari find a way to bring it back. And Inan also finds out, oh hey, I can use magic somehow because I don't know the rules are never made as clear as they could be. Like there's some that are a little more solid, but they're just not that great. And anyways, Amari, I'll just say right now does wind up working with Xaeli the whole way through. She's kind of whiny about it for a while, but she does stick with her once the chips are down. Okay, I'm not going to side with my dad here. I'm siding with you. Let's do this. Inan is much more annoying because, again, he grew up in a privileged position. He grew up in immense wealth and with immense power, and the current system is going to make him king. It's going to benefit him immensely, and throughout most of the book it seems like he's struggling with his desire to please his father, his desire to keep things as they are, and his desire to be a good person. Because as he's chasing after Xaeli and them to try and stop them from bringing magic back, he's realizing, man, maybe we are kind of doing terrible things here, I don't know. And so it seems like he's switching sides. And he kind of does at one point, but then he immediately switches back because he's like, okay, you know what? Magic is evil. My father is right. We can't let these people have power. Only I'm allowed to have power. Only we're allowed to have power. And the book goes so far out of its way to try and make him sympathetic, but I just wanted to kick his goddamn teeth in. Dude, stop whining about how mean your dad was being to you. Open your eyes. Realize that this is benefiting you. Like, if he had just acknowledged that, you know what? If I get rid of this, then I'm probably not going to be a prince anymore. I'm not going to be able to be a king. And I don't want that, so whatever. I'm just going to kill people. Like, he wouldn't be a hero in that case. He'd be a villain. He certainly would be. But at least he would be a more sympathetic, a more interesting character and he wouldn't be likable, but he would be very hateable. You know, and that's just as good when it's coming from villains. You know, someone who you don't necessarily think they have charm or anything, but they're just so good at being evil that you feel this visceral hatred of them. Like Dolores Umbridge is one of the best examples of that. Like, she doesn't have complex reasons for doing what she's doing or anything. She's just a terrible Nazi wizard bitch and she's one of the most memorable villains from years, or for years, excuse me. I'm having trouble talking today, but she's one of the most memorable villains that has come out in decades, I think. Because she's just so evil that you hate her a lot and I think Inan had potential to be that, but he just never lived up to that. And him and his father having this like weird hatred of magic kind of misses the point of what oppression is like. Like, it's usually not done out of hatred, it's done out of apathy. And it kind of seemed like that's what they were doing at first because they mentioned how like the taxes on diviners are super high and if they can't pay them then they get essentially sold off as slaves and so you understand like okay the conquerors are greatly benefiting from this arrangement. So it makes sense why they would do this. They don't hate them necessarily, they just don't care about them. And it really misses the mark when it tries to make it seem like no we must wipe out magic because grrr. Magic killed my family, I hate the grrr. It's just, it just doesn't work on any level. And it's, again, they're trying to make Inan sympathetic when it's just impossible for me to feel sympathetic towards him. Now Amari is better, but she's just a little too similar of a character for either of them to really stand out that much. Like the thing is Amari is basically the same as Inan. Like, again, grew up privileged, is upset that their dad was mean to them. Like, you know, that's totally the same as having your entire family murdered, right? But yeah, their dad was mean to them, so she's kind of sad about that and then she winds up having to run off because she found a way to restore magic and she decides she wants to help because she decides, she basically went in the opposite direction as Inan. Like, she decides, you know what, I'm not going to work for my dad anymore I'm going to help the Diviners. Which is, like the thing is, both of those could be interesting directions to take that character because they have essentially the same setup. But the fact that we have to spend two thirds of the book with them and it's split up, it just, neither of them really has the opportunity to do so. So I think had they been combined into one character and they just chose one direction to go in, then I think that could have been really neat. But as it stands, it's just some missed potential. The actual writing here is fine, I think. Like I said, there's one or two action scenes which I did really like. There's a scene in an arena where they're having to fight a bunch of people and Xaeli can raise the souls of the dead so she raises the souls of everyone who's died in the arena and then the souls go nuts and start killing people. That scene I actually thought was really cool. I really enjoyed that. But I mean, the other action scenes were mostly like, oh, that's kind of good. So I'll give a credit for that. Sometimes I read books where the action scenes are genuinely just really bad and it's hard to tell what's going on. But in this case, the only real problem is that magic is not super well-defined. Sometimes it just pops up and characters just sort of know how to use it. It's like I threw fireballs. And I threw lightning and stuff like that. And sure, that's neat in combat, but like how exactly do you use it? And it's mostly just, oh, I set an incantation and that's about it. So it's a little too simple and too easy for them to use it, which kind of makes them all seem like experts the instant they get their magic, which is, you know, disappointing. And it robs us of the ability to learn anything about the way it works, which, you know me, I'm a sucker for hard magic systems. I just think they're really neat. And even without that, we just... magic can really only be used for combat in this world, you know? Or combat and healing, I should say, but like there's never really an attempt to try and integrate it into society or show how it used to be integrated into society because remember it's been gone for a while. And yeah, I don't think I have much else to say. Like you all know this type of story. If you're interested in the premise, then check it out. Again, I'll give a credit that is at least taking place in a different setting than it usually does, which is neat. And the characters Zae Lee and Amari aren't the worst I've ever read, but Inan is really stupid and I hate him. But other than that, I just don't think there's really anything here for you if you're looking for anything different. And that's about it, bye. You guys, you are seriously the best. And thanks again for watching. If you want to get your name on here, then consider donating to my page. We also have other perks that you can have access to. And if you don't want to do that, then simply rating the video, commenting on it, subscribing to my channel, all that stuff I'm supposed to say at the end here. That is a huge help. Anyways, bye.