During the week of June 12th, there was a concerted push to purchase books by black authors in order to send a message to the publishing industry that we the readers want more books by black authors, and that stories by black authors have mainstream appeal.
One of the books I bought that week was Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi. Children of Blood and Bone is a YA Fantasy novel that won both the Nebula and Lodestar awards for best science fiction/fantasy YA, and I had been intending to read it for some time, and this situation was the final nudge I needed to actually buy and read it.
At first, it read like a a really well-constructed Fantasy YA.
The characters are complex and nuanced.
The worldbuilding and magic are fascinating. (As an avid Fantasy reader, I’m always interested in Fantasy not set in ‘Fantasy Medieval Europe’.)
The story is well-told, tight, and has beautiful prose that help to immerse you in that world.
The one thing that would have kept me from recommending this book across the board was the plot. It was, as I said above, very well-written and well-executed, but the nature of the plot is still:
“Magic used to be common. Now it’s all but gone from the world. But the heroes find a way to get a little magic back. Now they must get the Things to the Place and say the Words by the Time without the Bad Guys catching them. If they do, they will bring Magic back to the world! If not, Magic will be gone forever…”
So, definitely serviceable, but also a very standard plot. Good for stories where plot isn’t the main focus. And since this book is primarily character-driven, the plot works for this story. It just doesn’t add anything significant.
And so you have a fun, well-executed character-driven YA Fantasy story… for the first half of the book.
Then, in the second half of the book, a series of character interactions turn it into something more.
(This next part contains SPOILERS for some important story beats for a couple of the characters. If you want to avoid spoilers, scroll down to where it say ‘end spoilers’.)
SPOILERS
You see, within the worldsetting of Children of Blood and Bone, there is an oppressed class called Diviners. They are the people used to be able to use magic before it disappeared. They are oppressed by King Saran, as well as by the nobles and guards of Orisha.
And in the second half of the book, the interactions between Inan, crown prince and son of King Saran, and Zelie a Diviner, really crack this dynamic right open. Both have to confront the humanity of the other. Inan must confront the horrific atrocities and injustices that are perpetrated against the Diviners by his father and the Guards (who serve as the police force of Orisha) in order to keep them suppressed. He has to come to terms with the fact his prejudice against Diviners based in an undeserved level of fear. They both go through significant growth as characters, especially Inan.
Then, Inan sees a display of magic that terrifies him, bringing up all the fear he had been taught his entire life. His understanding and empathy for Diviners as a group backslides, even as his empathy for Zelie, who he has gotten to know as a person, grows.
END SPOILERS
The non-spoiler version is simply that this narrative explores prejudice and oppressive societal dynamics, and that some of the character interactions, especially in the second half of the book, really explore what it looks like when members of oppressed and oppressor classes interact and must confront each other’s humanity.
This is absolutely intentional on the part of Adeyemi. In an afterword to the novel, she says that she wrote this book as a direct response to the deaths of unarmed black children at the hands of police in the US, children like Jordan Edwards, Tamir Rice, and Aiyana Stanley-Jones.
So in this time in which we are actively confronting systemic racism, oppression, and police violence, let me recommend this excellent book by an amazing author.