The Bone Orchard

The Book in 1 Sentence

A woefully pointless ending about a victim who splits their personality into different people as a trauma response, is ordered to kill the son's of the Emperor who was poisoned.

Brief Review

It took me so long to figure out how the character structures were as far as the main characters that you follow that I almost put it down. I am glad that I didn't as it was an interesting read, but it could have been so much more.

Why I Read this book

Thought it would be a spookier read for Halloween. Was recommended on that basis when looking for books for my wife and I to read together.

In-Depth Review (Favorite Quotes)

So I am still trying to figure out something about the main character. I know that she split her personality into different "Ghost," from a Bone Tree. Why she did it I am still not sure. I got the impression that it was more of a multiple-personality-disorder (Now called D-I-D) thing, but I feel now that it was more of a trauma response. I am still not sure. Likewise, I am also not sure how to "Ghost" work. The characters are fine, I have no issues with the personalities being their own people and so it might have been easier to keep track of the "voice" each character had, but they were good overall. The exception to that is "Pride." Pride was blind and was told it was because of a mistake with the body. It turns out to not be, so I am curious as to why she was blind. If the "Justice" character had been blind, that would have been wonderful symbolism. However, our writer just decided to leave incomplete thoughts around.

The main story is interesting and honestly, I appreciate the author staying away from what was the obvious content since 90% of the book takes place at a brothel. A nice brothel for the equivalent of Senators (Thank you Easy A for that line), but still a brothel. The biggest lacking portion of this is just this telling you why people are bad with only a couple instances of it actually being shown. There is a character that shows up at the end, and you hear over and over again how bad they are, but by the time they show up, I didn't care. I knew that it wasn't going to be that bad. There was too little left of the book.

Speaking of the end. Without giving spoilers, the main characters have a such a third-party view of the end of the book. Yes, they are the focus, but it isn't their actions that really do anything. It is the actions of others. They just watched it all happen. For the most part.

Rating

This book started off very confusing, had a great middle, and ended in disappointment as the main characters didn't really affect much of the ended other than in an epilogue space. I enjoyed the book, but the ending was just lazy and really turned me off. I told my wife that I would give it a 7 overall, but as I write this I am going to give it a 6. The ending cost it.

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