Personal Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Rating (as of a week after book’s release): 3.68 Stars Content Rating: R (for disturbing violence) Trigger Warnings: Racism, torture, SO MUCH VIOLENCE, mentions of suicide. As an African tightrope dancer in Victorian London, Iris is used to being strange. She is certainly a strange sight for leering British audiences, always eager for the spectacle of colonial curiosity. But Iris also has a secret that even “strange” doesn’t capture… She cannot die. Haunted by her unnatural power and with no memories of her past, Iris is obsessed with discovering who she is. But that mission gets more complicated when she meets the dark and alluring Adam Temple, a member of a mysterious order called the Enlightenment Committee. Adam seems to know much more about her than he lets on, and he shares with her a terrifying revelation: the world is ending, and the Committee will decide who lives…and who doesn’t. To help them choose a leader for the upcoming apocalypse, the Committee is holding the Tournament of Freaks, a macabre competition made up of vicious fighters with fantastical abilities. Adam wants Iris to be his champion, and in return he promises her the one thing she wants most: the truth about who she really is. If Iris wants to learn about her shadowy past, she has no choice but to fight. But the further she gets in the grisly tournament, the more she begins to remember—and the more she wonders if the truth is something best left forgotten. (goodreads.com) First off, I won an ARC of this in a Goodreads giveaway, so thank you to the publisher and to Goodreads. Secondly, LOOK AT THAT GORGEOUS COVER! Oh my goodness, I love this cover so much. I mean, I adore any cover with a girl with swords on the front (who doesn’t?) but make that girl wearing a fabulous tutu while tightrope walking over a blazing city? That’s pretty darn cool, man. Apart from the lovely cover, the writing of this book really draws you in right away. I had plans to read something else before this book, but I happened to read the first few sentences of the first page and then suddenly it was midnight and I was five chapters in. Because it is such a long book (almost 500 pages) there were points that lulled a bit and the momentum slowed to a point where I would put the book down and not pick it up again for a while, but usually it didn’t take long to get back into the swing of things. This is definitely an action packed book. Some of the action was a little hard to follow at times, leaving me confused as to what just happened, but usually by the end of the chapter things were made clear. Although I ultimately understood what was happening in the book, there were small pieces that seemed to contradict themselves or just weren’t written super clearly and made it difficult to understand what was happening. Again, these things cleared themselves up for the most part, but there are still a few instances that left me confused. One such part was a point where the MC, Iris, was given a ribbon by a friend, but then it seemed like another character exploded that ribbon, but then she had it again in the next chapter. Maybe they were two different ribbons? I’m not sure. One thing I am sure of was how incredibly violent this book was. Goodness gracious. Let me just lay it out for you: there’s a cannibal in this book. And the “mealtimes” are described in vivid detail. Usually books aren’t graphic enough that images linger in my mind, but there is one scene in particular that I’m pretty sure is going to haunt me forever. I’m still cringing thinking about it. I don’t advise eating anything while reading the fight scenes. I don’t care if it’s saltine crackers. The grisly details will upset your stomach even if you aren’t eating and haven’t eaten for hours. I literally shuddered every time this character showed up. There were other aspects of this book that were violent too. The other most upsetting violence was done by a scientist performing inhumane experiments. I won’t say much because of spoilers, but the way this scientist treats other characters, particularly those of color, is pretty much just as horrific as what the cannibal does except he doesn’t eat flesh. If this book doesn’t give me nightmares I’ll be surprised. But enough about the gore. Let’s talk about some positives, eh? I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book hosts a full cast of super-powered characters. If you know me, you know I’m a sucker for superhero-esque plotlines. Especially when there are so many fun powers! You may be asking, what kind of superpowers are in this book (Well, we got everything nowadays. We got a guy who jumps, we got a guy who swings, we got a guy who crawls up the walls. You gotta be more specific.) and the answer to that is pretty much all of the wacky and wonderful ones. You don’t really have your usual super-strength, flight, superspeed things. It’s more like X-men style powers with shapeshifters, portal-makers, and fire breathers. Iris, apart from her undying-ness, was also a tight-rope walker by trade and I wish that had been brought up more in the story. There were a few minor parts where her skills came in handy, but not nearly enough. I would have loved to see her have to walk a tightrope to further the plot, or at least have more references to the circus that was mostly just at the beginning of the book. I also liked how the secrets of the story were revealed. Sometimes it frustrated me that things were being revealed so slowly, but I did like that the reader gets to piece things together themself as they go along. The clues are all there, but you have to put them together. (Speaking of clues, I just briefly want to complain that there was a whole chapter dedicated to this super elaborate riddle based in opera, English history, and Norse Mythology and they barely spent any time going over it! It made me so mad because it was such a complicated riddle that I could only figure out bits and pieces of it with help from Google and the characters only solved, like, two parts of it! I really wanted a full analysis, but alas, it was not to be. Which was honestly probably good for the pacing of the story, but STILL!) There was a bit of romance in this story, and it was fairly triangular (although, there was also another guy who might have made it a sort of square, but there was also another girl who was interested in one of the boys, so kind of a love pentagon thing going on). The “who will she end up with?” thing didn’t really go so well in my opinion because there was really only one serious option, but the romance, along with several major plot points are still not resolved by the end of the book so we’ll have to wait until the sequel to find out if I’m right. I should probably wrap this up before I give too much away. Final notes: I really liked this book even if I was confused about sections sometimes. I thought Iris was an interesting and likeable character and even though I wasn’t fond of him, I thought Adam was intriguing too along with many of the others. If you are into books with high stakes competitions, impending doom, super powers, crazy rich people, and kick-patooty girls and you can stomach the astounding violence, then I definitely recommend that you give The Bones of Ruin a read. I will be eagerly awaiting any news of the sequel. Until next time! Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43699470-the-bones-of-ruin
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