The Bone Shard War

This was a great conclusion to the trilogy! In anticipation to read this, I reread the entire series and I enjoyed it much more the second time than I did originally. Personally, I think knowing the major plot twists from the books, but specifically the first book, made my reading experience better. It was easier for me to understand the world and how the magic system works, which I definitely had a hard time with the first time around. Everything I loved about this book would be a spoiler so I'm not going to share much, but Andrea Stewart's writing is really good! She makes the characters feel so real and I can completely understand where they're all coming from and why they're making the decisions that they are. I ended up reading this whole 600+ page book (and 20 hour audiobook) in one day because I simply didn't want to stop.






Thank you to Orbit Books, Hachette Audio, and NetGalley for providing me with both an eBook and an eBook to review.

I probably should not have continued with this series, as I found book two to be pretty bad, and I didn't love book one. However, I was really determined to figure out why this wasn't clicking, because on paper I should like this series. It just wasn't working.

And I had a random thought while reading this book, and then I searched the book for a phrase. And once I did, it allowed my issues with this series to coalesce. Bear with me here: this book says the phrase “The Shardless Few” 307 times.

The Shardless Few is the name of the organization/rebellion trying to overthrow the government. And their name is said CONSTANTLY. Why is this the problem? It's not. It's a symptom of the problem. My issue with this series is that none of it feels believable, none of the characters act like real people, none of the political stakes feel like real stakes. Everything is extraordinarily hollow to me.

I first realized this because we are presented this story through five POV characters from various backgrounds, and each of them interacts with many others, and every single one of these characters say “The Shardless Few X. The Shardless Few Y. We can't ignore the Shardless Few. The Shardless Few are here. Whose here? The Shardless Few.” and I just don't think everyone would always talk like this. That's a long phrase and especially people who have to interact with the group daily would shorten it. The Shardless. The Few. The SFs, dammit. Can you imagine if every single time a person in the FBI referred to the FBI, they said “Federal Bureau of Investigation”? They would sound absurd. Their vocal cords would rebel. People just don't do this.

And that's a silly nitpick, that was just taking me out of it a little. But once I realized that, I was aware of how every character felt like that. They talked as if they were being written. The scheming was written as if they were being told to pretend to scheme, like an acting workshop without the instructor's presence. The political aspects were like if a child just said “hey in my story, these are the bad guys. Why? They do bad stuff I guess.” Most of the high stakes drama boils down to someone being like:

“We must stop the abuse! The Shardless Few want to stop the abuse! We will not ignore The Shardless Fee's desires. We agree with the Shardless Few.”
“Okay I will work with the Shardless Few, because I also don't like abuse and stuff.”
“Thank you for helping the Shardless Few! The Shardless Few will appreciate it! The Shardless Few will fill help the children. With the orphanages and stuff.”
“The children? Oh yeah, children. Orphanages. Yes, this is a big problem. I will help the Shardless Few with the orphanages”

Like what is this series even about? Why do any of these people do the things they do? There are all these islands and we are supposed to care about rebellions on each island and various injustices on these islands but each island's personality is “island”. There's “island X” and “Island Y” and everyone has the same thoughts and opinions; they want the children to be taken care of and for the abuses to stop. Down with the emperor! Long live the Shardless Few!

K.

I will also say that the audiobook narrators were mostly really good, and got me through this entire series.

Dua tahun berlalu sejak pertempuran Gaelung, dimana The Bone Shard Emperor berakhir. Kemenangan pertama yang diraih Kaisar Lin Sukai di Gaelung tidak membuatnya mendapatkan aliansi dengan mudah. Kekaisaran masih dalam kondisi tidak stabil dan Lin kekurangan dukungan.
Dengan gubernur-gubernurnya merencanakan pengkhianatan, kelompok Shardless Few memulai pertempuran juga. Yang lebih buruk, nemesis lamanya, Nisong, bekerja bersama Alanga Ragan, untuk membunuhnya.
Harapan terletak pada sejarah dan legenda mengatakan mitos tujuh pedang, ditempa berabad silam. Jika Lin mampu menemukannya sebelum musuh-musuhnya, Lin mungkin bisa membalikkan keadaan.
Namun jika dia gagal, seluruh kekaisaran akan runtuh.
Sebagai penutup trilogy, The Bone Shard War untukku, memiliki akhir yang memuaskan dan agak emosional. Setelah buku kedua The Bone Shard Emperor yang kurang meninggalkan bekas seperti pendahulunya, The Bone Shard Daughter, aku agak ragu melanjutkan ke buku ketiganya ini.
Namun keputusanku tepat membaca penutup ini. Aku tidak bisa menjabarkan banyak tanpa spoiler. Yang paling memuaskan buatku akhirnya di buku ini kita akan mengetahui apa penyebab pulau-pulau tenggelam. Penutup untuk kelangsungan kekaisaran dan akhir untuk seluruh karakter yang diperkenalkan penulis sangat memuaskan buatku.