Reviews with content warning for War - The Bone Shard Daughter

This book was intriguing and captivating from cover to cover. Each character is so well written with unique qualities and a sense of narrative specific to them. The diversity, the depth of character, the personal growth, and the great questions this book forces one to ask relative to its plot make for a deeply dynamic and simply excellent book.
I'm excited to read the next two books.

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viselik's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The book definitely has some interesting plots and themes, and I felt the plot twists made sense and were well done. I managed to figure out a few of them before they were revealed, so those felt good to experience. I like how the 'magic' system is explained for the most part and the culture of this world with the Tithing festivals and bone shard magic (even if I am curious why it's only bones from the skull, but I may have accidentally missed that part while reading).

The characters were all very interesting to me except maybe one or two, even if I felt that five main POV characters were a bit too much. I would have personally preferred having either Phalue or Ramani not having POV chapters, as I felt they just took up space that could have been better used elsewhere. Having them be in a relationship is definitely interesting. Still, it just made me really dislike Ramani as a character due to how she treats Phalue. I just did not see any connection between them from Ramani's POV chapters. Sand, I just was not interested in, they brought interesting concepts but they felt a bit disjointed with the rest of the book, even more so with the ending of their arc.

This book definitely holds up as a standalone (excluding some minor things). I always prefer a book in a series that can be enjoyed just as a standalone and not have to rely on the other books in the series to have a complete plot.

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thenexthing's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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thoseoldcrows23's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this! I will say it feels like a first book. I can tell that Stewart has some big ideas for the story, and a lot of this book's time is spent trying to hurriedly get piece into place. As a result, the pacing is a little off, and some of the relationship dynamics between characters feel rushed; however, Stewarts writing is super engaging, the world/magic is cool and unique, and the story is playing with some of my favorite tropes. I think there's room for this series to be something really special, and I'm looking forward to continuing.

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caspian_the_pauper's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Author is clearly a developing author and the plot is rather predictable but the world building is well done and the characters are easy to root for

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booksalacarte's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

The bone shard daughter - 4.25⭐️ 1🌶️

The emperor's reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire's many islands.

Lin is the emperor's daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.

Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright - and save her people.

——————

✨My Opinion✨

This was a wonderfully woven beginning to such a unique story. The opening line pulled me right in and the characters strange and compelling stories kept me reading.

The story follows 4 POV’s, each voice completely unique. There was so much world bulding done in a beautiful way. You see the magic through Lin, the emperors daughter trying to earn the magic her father keeps hidden behind locked doors, and Jovis, a smuggler who experienced one of the islands sinking into the sea and his companion pet Mochi.

The tone of the empire is flushed out through Phalue, a governor's daughter who is trying to balance duty and her relationship with the woman she loves. And the empires dark secrets are given a backgrand with Sandu, a woman on an island with no faint memories of her life coming to light.

The characters get caught up in the different themes: morality, humanty, classism, grief, power, identity, complicated relationships, Love, trust, treason.

My biggest draw to the story is the relationship between Jovis and Mochi. So much is unknown, even to them, what is going on. I can’t wait to see it play out. Jovis’ POV Definitly got me through the heaviest world building.

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kaziaroo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

On the whole I loved this – the characters, the magic system, the mystery were all amazing (plus a queer-normative world!). I would have liked it if the setting was more fleshed out, maybe going more into the cultures of the different islands rather than them all feeling the same, but overall the story was immersive enough and the characters lovable enough to look past that. I loved Jovis and Mephi in particular, and I liked Lin too; there's always a difficulty in amnesiac characters as they have such a short background on which to build a personality and identity, but I think the author did an admirable job.

I wanted to see more of Bayan, alas... :(

My only real criticism is that I felt the book would have been better without Ranami and Phalue's POV chapters. Their story had an interesting message and moral dilemma but it just didn't seem to fit and their chapters were quite dull to get through compared to the rest of the book. As a novella on their own, those chapters would have been fine, but I found myself skim-reading them to get back to Jovis, Lin and even Sand. Maybe more will come of Ranami and Phalue in the sequel, but I just couldn't get behind their relationship or find the point of their storyline or its impact of the overall plot.

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gatorademachinegun's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Absolutely DEVOURED this book, the most fun I’ve had with a book in a long time. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Masterfully written.

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