Books & Bone

I did not had any expectations for this book (except that it was warmly recommended by a dear friend), so I start reading with the only intend to spend time, vaguely thinking "ho, necromancers, we usually don't hear much from those folks". I grew fond of almost all of the characters: Ree, the daughter of a necromancer and healer who wants to belong while forging her way towards something else that her community envision. Smythe, Third Rank Scholar (basically the biggest nerd in the room) who seek power and validation while being an extremely decent human towards their friends. The writing is so good I even grew attached to a mindless minion who does not have a single line of dialog!

I think this book came at the right moment. It's about romance, belonging and struggling to find our place. It's about wanting to help our community while rejecting part of it. It's about growing love and the utter confusion that comes with it.

I liked that queer characters were basically here; romantic orientations were part of the background, but characters did not struggle to simply exist with it.

I'd like to read more stories with those characters.

Books & Bone is an absolutely amazing book about a girl named Ree who lives in a necromancer city. She was the first child to grow up in Tombtown, a city for necromancers. Though she doesn't feel like one of them, she has seen what necromancy does with people, and she doesn't like that. She wants another kind of magic, thought of as fairytales.

It is just an amazing book. Every day once I started reading, it was nearly impossible to stop. There is much adventure and it is very exciting. I love the way things are written. In the end there are so much nice plot twists, I really adore that.

Tuesday I finished it. I had the book with me to school and as always I arrived half an hour too early. So I started reading. I kept reading and I had to read out aloud to prevent myself to keep able to concentrate on it, because there was a mare and more noise around me, made by all the other people waiting for school to start. Once it was time to go upstairs to the classroom, I kept sitting down for a moment, I had almost finished the book. I could simply not put it away. I took the book for a moment in one hand, slowly grabbed my bag, and continued reading. I continued reading as I walked up the stairs. Once I arrived upstairs, I had just one and a half page left to read. I read that pages as I took off my jacket and walked into the classroom. I finished it just a moment after I came to my spot in the classroom. It was really nice.