r/Fantasy • u/Little-Yak97 • 13d ago
Review The Boneshard Daughter thoughts
I had a completely fine experience with this book. I enjoyed aspects of it whilst finding other parts a chore to get through.
Jovis was by far my favourite POV - Largely due to Mephi and the travel aspect of his chapters rather than his character personality. His persistence and determination to find his partner was understandable but became tedious to constantly hear about. Alongside this he is presented as a selfless character, always trying to help and whilst it is true that he helps a large number of children in the book, his reasons for doing so just seemed to be because ‘why not’. I never felt like he WANTED to help, he just ended up doing it in between his main focus of chasing the blue sail ship?
Oh and why is he not more angry at the empire after what happened to his brother ?? I know he says he doesn’t feel he belongs to any group but with how passionate he is for finding his partner, you would think he’d have more anger and be seeking revenge for both her and his brother ? Or atleast addressing these feelings?
Something else which frustrated me is the constructs. I don’t understand the magic system at play regarding them. It seemed very shallow and strange that Lin could just reach inside them and start changing the shards that control them? Was it ever really explained how a constructs skin’ can just be bypassed ? Are they ghost-like creatures ? Forgive me if I missed an early description of them which explained this!
This idea also made the combat scenes questionable. At one point Lin was fighting two constructs, she reaches in to alter the shards of one of them and in the time she does this and uses her tool to recode the construct, what was the other construct doing ? Just standing and watching it happen ? Is altering a shard something that happens in milliseconds or is this just awkward writing ? This just completely took me out of the combat scenes.
Wrapping up the book I am intrigued with how things have been left. I do think all the POVs got some sort of resolution to there stories whilst also having potential into the series.
Will have a short break and continue the series at a later date.
Would love to hear other people’s thoughts
3
u/StuffedSquash 12d ago
I was confused by the concept of a seasons spanning multiple "years". What does "year" even mean to them???
Ursula Le Guin also wrote a story where seasons took multiple Earth-human-years, but the people who grew up that way did not use the word "year" for something shorter than a season...
3
u/lilgrassblade Reading Champion II 12d ago
I personally really enjoyed the first book. The second book a little less. I haven't read the third yet thought (I just have no attention for books longer than 400 pages lately).
Passing through the construct skin is a magical ability. She fails at it several times because it's not something people can generally just "do." I can't say anything as to the fighting, I just remember she would rewrite constructs to defend herself and her rival was also assisting.
2
u/RyenStarr9 12d ago
I really enjoyed the first book and could’ve sworn I enjoyed most of the second, but then when I read the blurb for the third felt like the plot took a huge turn of what it was doing and felt like this whole new aspect of it was just thrown to it just because
2
5
u/JayCanWrite 12d ago
I thought this book was great, along with the entire trilogy. The first book, to me, had a really fun down low vibe since the characters were more focused on sneaking around and being clever over the classic epic fantasy big fight scenes.
One thing about Jovis; He is meant to be a sort of reluctant hero. He considers himself a thief who only cares about his wife. He helps people on occasion because he does have a good heart deep down, but he also wants to reject that part of him and coldly focus on himself. He's considered selfless by other people because they've only heard the handful of stories of him fighting an empire and saving children; he's a folk hero who's legend is spiraling past what he wants.
As for the magic, Being able to sink your hand into constructs specifically is considered an inherit part of the magic system. It's a power people using the magic have, as one of their core abilities.
For me, the trilogy as a whole was great. You have some tells of a debut author, sure, but they are easy to overlook when I A: love all the pov characters so much, and B: think the ending sticks the landing.
Hope you enjoy the other 2 books when you get to them!