Review by Jasmine Sov, 14

Bone Crier’s Moon tells the story of Ailesse and Sabine, two young girls who must one day complete their rite of passage—summoning and sacrificing their destined true love—in order to become true Bone Criers, ferries of the dead. Ailesse is the daughter of her famille’s Matrone (queen), prepared to undergo her rite of passage, while Sabine doesn’t feel like she was cut out for the Bone Crier way of life. But what they don’t know is that Ailesse’s one true love, Bastien, is seeking revenge for his father who was killed by a Bone Crier. Before Ailesse or Bastien can fulfill any of their goals, though, Ailesse’s ritual begins and they’re bound in life and in death, with Sabine left to try and break the bond between them.
The concept behind the book is an interesting one, and I do like how Bone Criers gain their powers through killing an animal and taking one of their bones to gain some of the enhanced traits of the animal. The idea of “Bone Criers” ferrying the dead (a good thing) while having to kill their true love in order to do so (a bad thing) allows both Ailesse and Bastien to justify their actions, which lets the reader look at the conflict from both perspectives and presents an interesting dynamic. However, I didn’t exactly like Ailesse and Bastien’s character development—they seem to not really change for the better besides eventually understanding each other’s stance on the issue. I actually enjoyed reading from Sabine’s perspective more than reading from Ailesse’s or Bastien’s—Sabine changes a lot over the course of the story and becomes far more confident and assertive than she was at the beginning.
Unfortunately, much of the plot was very predictable. This story would be much more interesting as a movie or TV show than as a book. I just wasn’t able to imagine that strong emotion that the characters supposedly feel at some points, or be shocked at plot twists. The problem here is that too many tropes were employed—I do enjoy tropes in moderation, but Bone Crier’s Moon, whether intentionally or unintentionally, stuffed in too much.
3 stars

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453 pages