Bone Crier’s Moon

The mythology is interesting but the story is not. The author’s writing style was disruptive and frustrating—there was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing. It felt at times I was being spoon-fed realizations that should have come more naturally. What I really hated in this book was the romance. The romance was not believable or built well at all. It was a case of instant love that didn’t make sense/paced poorly. They didn’t do anything or bond in a way that made their attraction believable.. The twists in the story felt too rushed and fell absolutely flat. I was not shocked. Some of the intentions of the gods, the characters, etc. made little sense. There’s a part of the book that just skips two weeks. That would have been a good chunk of time for some world building and character development. Most of the secondary characters were one dimensional. I see a lot of potential in this story but the execution was poor. The relationships between the characters needed to be developed more and the twists and reasons why needed to be reworked.

This started with one character (Sabine) who was another one of those cut-out, “lacks confidence, purpose, direction” characters. But then the story wasn’t really about her—it was more like her story line existed to support another character’s (Ailesse). Ailesse had the most character by far, and was truly the only character I could easily picture—probably why she is on the cover. The story takes too long to describe Sabine and leaves other character like Jules with hardly anything to go on visually. Jules is constantly described as having a scratchy voice, and once described with as having blonde hair. Some characters in stories can feel real without having been physically described at all, however these characters aren’t that present. The plot is predictable, there is one nice twist at the end, but it’s minor. The sequel seems promising with how the end of this one has set it up, and might actually be quite good since the entirety of Bone Crier’s Moon finally gave these characters a little presence. But I don’t know if I’ll personally read it since this characters were so…thinly developed. Especially since newer characters are involved, I don’t want to go through another book with vague, amorphous character blobs. I am disappointed that Sabine’s character could not stay true—she easily crossed her own standards and changed into a different character with very little clear motive. She was indecisive, ineffective, and really barely belonged in this story. If it was her coming of age, I couldn’t tell. It seemed more like her coming of “confusion, fear, indecisiveness, and finally, random resolve thanks to a bird.”

UHM WOW. First of all, thank you so much to Harper Collins/Katherine Tegan Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! Ailesse and Sabine are Lueresses, or as Bastien would call them \”Bone Criers\”. A Lueress must kill 3 animals and carve their Bones to receive their graces, attached them to their bone necklace. Sabine is an animal lover and has only killed one fire salamander that graces her with agility, balance and swift healing, but as the heir, much more is expected from Ailesse. When she kills a tiger shark and obtains her third grace, Ailesse must call her amoure and kill him in order to fulfill her sacrifice to the Gods and become a Ferrier to ferry the dead like the others before her. Amoures are the soulmates of the Luresses, and if she doesn\’t complete the ceremony, both the amoure and the Luress will die. But when Ailesse and Sabine go to her bridge to play the song on the bone flute, Bastien comes. Bastien\’s father was lured and killed by a Bone Crier when he was young, and has spent the better part of his life trying to exact revenge against the Bone Criers. Bastien and his friends capture Ailesse and steal the Bone flute-an item not only necessarying for louring amoures, but for ferrying the dead. With the New Moon coming soon, Ailesse\’s mother, Odiva, is desperate to find a solution to the mess. I really cannot tell you how I enjoyed this book! IT is so unique, and it was a breath of fresh air to read a YA Fantasy novel so new and creative! I connected most with Sabine. I spent much of my life refuses to eat meat, and though I am not a vegetarian, I do my best to limit my use of animal products. Really, just read this. AMAZING.

So I said I would post when done with both books but had to post partially. This series is amazing! Its up there with SJM and Holly Black without. A Fae romance. Its like the old fantasy books. I felt the author put so much love into this book. It has tons of adventure and amazing main and side characters AND villains. A really great romance as well.. BASTIAN will become a book boyfriend if more read it. He\’s just awesome. The book has poetic moments too when he speaks of Alesse etc which will make a woman just go OMG! WOW! ALESSE is beautiful, smart and a woman\’s dream for a strong female character. There are animal sacrifices but when you read why it makes so much sense AND there is sort of a Native American feel to that. Kinda like when the Native Americans would kill Buffalo for food. They also used the rest of it for other things and would thank the Buffalo spirit etc. There is also SABINE who is Alesse\’s best friend but there is more to her and she\’s just amazing and quite a Heroine. Its not Smutty but the enemies to lovers is very well written. Like I said the love tension is just well done. I really recommend this book plus I am almost done. The audiobook version is very well done. I chose not to read any reviews so I say decide for yourselves.

This book is more on the lower end of a 4 star read. If there were half stars, it\’d be a 3.5 rating from me. I\’m so glad that I\’ve managed to read this book. I\’ve been hesitant to pick this book up as I was worried that I wouldn\’t like it and that it would put me into a reading slump. Fortunately, I really liked this book so that did not happen. In fact, this rating is more because I enjoyed this book rather than the story itself, because there were things that I didn\’t like about this book. The plot of this book was very gripping. It starts off in the past with Bastien\’s backstory, with his father being taken by a Bone Crier and then it\’s a fast forward to the present with Bastien wanting revenge. We also meet Ailesse and Sabine who are like apprentice Bone Crier\’s(?). After acquiring her final animal bone, Ailesse is able to undertake the final task before she is allowed to ferry the souls of the dead, to kill her true love. But it goes horribly wrong because Bastien wants revenge, so he kidnaps Ailesse and sets a trap for the Bone Crier\’s Queen. What I liked about this book was the fact that this part of the plot started quite early on in the book. It\’s about 50 pages when this scene happens, and I like the fact that this happened quite early on because sometimes I\’ll read books and what happens in the blurb would happen half way through the book, so it is like you are promised one thing and you\’re given another. From then on, the plot is fast paced as it switches the point of view between Aliesse, Bastien, and Sabine. This book is definitely more plot based then it is character based, so that\’s why I quite enjoyed this book. In terms of the characters, my favourite one is definitely Sabine. I was looking forward to reading her chapters the most and I am the most intrigued about her character in the sequel. I want to see the person that she becomes after the events of this book. I did like Ailesse, but I disliked the decisions that she made. However, I did really like the relationship between Sabine and Ailesse. I think that it is the best part of this book and will continue to be in the sequel. I didn\’t really like Bastien. I felt like not enough time was spent on his character evolving because he needed his perspective to change. Also, I didn\’t really see his appeal. If he was meant to be my true love, I\’d ask for another one. I didn\’t mind the side characters but they weren\’t developed at all. I also didn\’t like the romance between Ailesse and Bastien. I think the romance felt a bit lazy with them being true loves to one another, because I think even if Bastien was my true love, I wouldn\’t love him after how he kidnapped and treated me. I think the romance would have been more believable if Bastien wasn\’t the main kidnapper and was more hesitant in killing Bone Crier\’s. I don\’t see Bastien liking Ailesse when she is the focus of his revenge. Another one of my favourite aspects of this book is the magic system. I found it interesting that the Bone Crier\’s magic stemmed from the bones of the animals that they hunted and killed. The bones need to undergo a ritual in order for the Bone Crier\’s to be able to use the animals traits. The bones then get fashioned into a piece of jewellery, but if the Bone Crier is not in immediate contact with the bones then they lose the traits of their animals. I do think that this is quite cool but I also thought that if you could take them off and not have the abilities, I feel like people would do that. Like what good is night vision in the day time? But I imagine that it\’s more like getting a higher prescription of glasses, in the sense that you need to get used to the powers and once you do it\’s a part of you. However, a thing that I disliked about this world was the random French words and place names. I understand that this book is most likely set in a fantasy French inspired world, but I didn\’t like the lack of world building. Saying a few things in French, and having a French named city doesn\’t make me visualise the setting. I am guessing that the nearest town/city in this book is based on Paris because of the catacombs, but there wasn\’t a lot of description or world building which was disappointing. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book. It does have it\’s flaws but I will continue on with the series once the sequel comes out. I don\’t know if I would recommend it, but it\’s not a bad book. In fact it\’s a slightly better than average YA book, but that doesn\’t mean that I would recommend people to read it because it does lack quite a few things. I would perhaps say don\’t expect a lot.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member