The Bone Season with spoilers

This review will be about The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, which was published

August 20, 2013. It is technically the second book of The Bone Season Series. The first

is a 0.5 (kind of like a novella or filler) but I like to read the regular ones most of the time.

There are, including the .5’s, 6 completed books in the series with 3 to come out in the

following years. It is classified as a Young Adult/ Adult, Paranormal, Fantasy, Dystopian,

Romance on Goodreads. 

A little about the book;

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal

underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named

Jaxon Hall. Her job: is to scout for information by breaking into people’s minds.

For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant, and, in the world of Scion, she

commits treason simply by breathing.

It is raining the day her life changes forever. Attacked, drugged, and kidnapped,

Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years,

controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden,

a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural

enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be

nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

Review:

I didn’t look at any other reviews for this book as I wanted to get a feel for it myself

but after reading it, I did look at other reviews. I could agree on some of the things

that were said about it but at the same time I kind of did enjoy this book besides

some scenes. 

I absolutely LOVED that there was a map! For those of you that have been reading

my reviews, you know I love a map to go with the book!

The info-dumping. There’s a lot. So much so that I was thoroughly confused within

the first few chapters and I had to keep referencing the Clairvoyant list and the slang

dictionary in the back of the book. It’s supposed to be from the year 2059 but it feels

like the 1920's with all the slang, the gangster references, and the setting of the world. 

I loved the main character Paige because she reminded me of not too hard-core and

not too soft of a chick but the more the story progressed, I felt a bit let down. She’s

being used by her gang leader aka “mime-lord” for her powers, she’s either obvious

to it or she doesn’t have a choice because it’s either that or get kidnapped and

tortured/killed for being a clairvoyant. 

Which brings me to, her ending up being kidnapped, drugged, almost raped, and

beaten by these other world creatures who ended up in her world from a type of

“rift”. These creatures, known as the Rephaim, kidnap the clairvoyants and

non clairvoyant, known as amaurotics, to train to kill the Emim (Monsters),

feed off of their aura, and basically torture and kill them. 

When Paige first gets to the Rephaim camp, and gets claimed by the only

“hot one around” , a part of me knew that there was going to be something

between them. Now, I like a morally gray character but the way Warden was

portrayed wasn’t something I liked. He lacked emotion for supposedly being a

“good guy” in disguise, was a “brooding type”, and invaded Paige’s privacy

a lot of the time, and didn't really care if others were being hurt/killed. At first it

seemed like he was on the fence about being on the Reph’s side or humans

but towards the end he was on the humans side.  

Towards the end of the book, all of a sudden, Paige and Warden suddenly have

feelings for each other.. Which, for pretty much the whole book they hated each other

and didn’t trust each other so how? Just how.. I knew they were going to have a

type of romance but I didn’t feel like there was a lot leading up to it. It was all no

trust/hate and then BAM! Romance. I love enemies to lovers but I need the leading

up to lovers, this one just kind of came out of nowhere. 

The action and fighting scenes were what I was hoping for, it was definitely

action-packed and had my heart racing with anticipation, I was not disappointed

with those scenes!

I love the complex world building and the character development that happens and

I would highly recommend it if you like those too but I don’t recommend reading it

if you are sensitive to kidnapping, almost rape, torture, and being drugged. It does

add some element to the book but there was a lot of it so it started to just rub me

the wrong way. 

Out of 5 stars, I would rate this one a 4. Only because I loved the idea of it and

the clairvoyants. I’m going to try to read the second book, yes I can do a review on

that one as well, but if I end up not liking it either I probably won't finish the series

which saddens me but, if you can’t get into it, don’t push yourself. 

P.S I just found out that the author actually ended up rewriting this series, so I’ll

have to look into that and see just how different it is compared to this one!