This is hands down the best book I have read this year. I loved it so much! There’s so much story and adventure packed into this book, that by the midway point, it felt that other books would have just been ending. There is not a single bit of boring storytelling in this, and I found myself really taking the time to imagine the scenes (I know it’s sort of lazy I guess when I don’t, but in other fantasies I have read it’s just tedious).
I had started reading this after trying to read two other popular fantasies and being immediately put off by the main character being eighteen years old. I get it, YA is having a time right now and that’s great, but I wanted a story where the heroes are my age and this book was it. It is so refreshing to read a book this good, in the fantasy genre, that had characters in their thirties/forties!
The story is about five friends who have already saved the world and must do so again. Kreya, the logical leader who makes bone constructs (think bones and whatever other material that can be combined to make a robot, whether it’s wood, fabric, or metal). Jentt her husband who acts as the thief and scout for the group. Zera her best friend who can carve talismans from bones to make people and constructs fly, gain speed, be stealthily. Stran their big lovable boulder of a friend and finally Marso, their bone reader who can read the future and past in the bones. Zera is my favorite character, her personality was fun, sassy, loyal, heart-warming. Honestly, I’d love to see another story in this series and if not based on the Five, then based solely on her. Below are some quotes I pulled out.
As she descended the spiral stairs, she paused on the third level to check on her husband. He lay, as always, carefully wrapped in white linens. “Tomorrow, we’ll watch the sun rise together,” she told him. “You’ll say something that will make me laugh, and I’ll make willow tea that you’ll ruin with too much honey. And then we can do whatever you want. Walk in the woods. Mend that step you’re forever tripping over. We’ll have time.”
It was comforting to be surrounded by so many books, as if the experience of all the authors could protect her from the unknown future. Although I have never felt protected, who can’t say they haven’t felt comforted by being surrounded by books? Twisting in the saddle, Zera tried to check, but the horse’s fur blocked her view. The horse snorted until she pulled herself back up. “You’re a fussy one.” She decided that meant it was a boy. Opening her eyes, Kreya noticed that the other rag dolls were clustered around, some on the bed and some by her feet. She gathered them into her arms, and they swarmed all over her, patting her hair and stroking her back. She looked down at the little crushed scout in her arms. Why did these little creatures have so much personality to them? I wanted to cry reading that! Without thinking about whether he could or not, she asked, “Marso, any predictions?” “Death and doom,” he replied. “I don’t need bones for that.”
Thanks to the author Sarah Beth Durst, Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions are mine.
Other books read by this author: The Spellshop
Published by: Avon and Harper Voyager
Publication Date: 09 Mar 2021
Genre: Sci Fi | Fantasy
Pages: 496
Date Read: 01 Oct 2020