Book Review Monday- The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon| It'sCarenzaB

In March I read The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon and soon after I started the sequel, The Mime Order. I finished it in April as I had a very bad reading month in April. I wasn't the biggest fan of The Bone Season and I had seen mixed reviews on The Mime Order, but I wanted to gather my own opinions on The Mime Order. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of The Mime Order, but I still wanted to review it.  Like all my reviews, this will contain spoilers for the books in this series (bar The Song Rising as I haven't read it).

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon- Contains Spoilers

Non-Spoiler Thoughts

As I've already said, I wasn't a fan of The Mime Order. This book is over 500 pages and I personally feel that nothing very exciting happened until the last 50 pages. I wasn't a huge fan of The Bone Season, but I wanted to give The Mime Order a chance. I am doubting if I will enjoy The Song Rising and if I will continue with this series at this point. I gave it 2/5 stars on Goodreads.

Cover Chat

While I have problems with the series, I do love the covers. Samantha Shannon has been blessed by the cover gods. Like I mentioned in my Bone Season review, it was the covers that drew me in.

Plot

Paige Mahoney has escaped the brutal prison camp of Sheol I, but her problems have only just begun: many of the survivors are missing and she is the most wanted person in London...

As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on the dreamwalker, the mime-lords and mime-queens of the city's gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take centre stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner.

Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided.

As always, this was taken of Goodreads and the page is linked here. 

Opinions

I was really hoping that I was going to like The Mime Order (TMO) more than The Bone Season (TBS), but unfortunately I liked it less. So far this year, my problem with books has been the pacing and this books pacing was by far the worse I have read. Everything just seemed to be dragged out and it took me a while to finish this book because of the pacing. I understand that you can't just have action scenes all the time, but this book had some very good actions scenes and then the character building scenes in-between just dragged the book down.  

I touched on this in my TBS review, but I do not like the main characters, Paige and Warden. I find them very irritating and self-centered. All the decisions they make come out of nowhere and there is very little character development. The only character I vaguely like is Nick. Nick is such a sweet character and is so protective of Paige.

Considering the events of TBS, Paige doesn't seem too traumatized. Usually in the second book of a series, the main character is close to having a break down due to events in the first book. While I am glad that Samantha Shannon steered away from this stereotype, I would have liked there to have been more of an impact on Paige and The Seven Seals.

I did enjoy Jaxon as a "kind of villain", as compared to the actual villain (who after reading I still have no idea why they did what they did), was very good and I felt scared of him. Jaxon's character is definitely one of the most developed in the series as he as already gone on a huge journey between two books.    

I finished this book a little over two weeks ago as I'm posting this and I still have no idea what actually happened in TMO. It went in a completely different direction to TBS and seemed to have very little to do with what happened in TBS. It would have been more enjoyable if I had understood what had happened and actually answered some of the questions I had from TBS.

My main issue with the plot was Paige's betrayal of Jaxon. To me, it came out of nowhere and felt like an attempt for Paige to have power. While I can see how Jaxon treats the other members of The Seven Seals is bad, the way Paige publicly challenged him was unnecessary.  

I am doubting if I will continue with this series, but as I have book three (The Song Rising), I will read that before the year is out. I am not the hugest fan of series more than four books (The Mortal Instruments and Harry Potter being exceptions), so it is interesting that this is going to be a seven book series.

So that concludes my review of The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon. Let me know what you thought of it and you are completely welcome to disagree with me. Just a quick note, I will not be posting regularly on here for the month of May due to exams at the end of the month. I hope you guys can understand, but once they are over, I will be posting lots on here!
Love,
Carenza x

Book Review Monday- The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon| It'sCarenzaB

Hey Guys!
How are you?

In March I read the first book in The Bone Season septology (don't know if that's a word, but it's a seven book series). I had seen so many people rave about this series and when I found a used hardcover for £2 including postage on Amazon, I had to buy it. So I read it and I now have mixed feelings on it. Like all my reviews, I will be discussing spoilers, so if you have not read The Bone Season, you will not be able to read this review.

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon- Contains Spoilers

Non-Spoiler Thoughts

I definitely went into this book with a lot of expectations and I have to say, this book didn't live up to expectation. I think that I am part of a minority who wasn't a huge fan of the book. I am continuing with this series as I am halfway through the second book and have seen a few spoilers for book three. I can see why people love this book, but it isn't for me. Once I have finished book three, I am going to be deciding if I will continue with this series. 

Cover Chat

I have to say that it was the covers that grabbed my attention. I have owned the paperback of The Bone Season for almost a year, but have never got round to reading it. The covers are really striking and the naked hardcover has the matching design underneath.

Plot

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant - and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.

It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine into the world of fiction. It also introduces Samantha Shannon, an extraordinary young writer with huge ambition and a teeming imagination, who has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

Opinions

Like I said in my non-spoiler section, I was disappointed with this book. I think it was because I went in with lots of expectations, which is something I never do. I had heard lots of good things about it, so I was expecting it to be epic and for me, it wasn't.

My main problem with this book was that it was filled with info dumps. As The Bone Season is a dystopian, you tend to get lots of information about why society is that way. I felt that around 70% of this book was information and I wasn't enjoying it. I felt that I learnt more about the society than our main character Paige.

I'm going to say something that may offend fans of the series and that is I don't like either of the main characters. I found them both quite irritating. I also wasn't a fan of the whole master-slave relationship. I really don't like it when authors romanticize slavery. Slavery is not a romantic subject. It is a horrible thing that happened to so many people, it's not a subject for romance.

I will say that I loved the character of Jaxon. Despite the fact that he is supposed to a bad influence, I loved the way Shannon had written his character. I could see the bourgeoisie influence on him. I liked how he was written to be a bad character and he fits that role so well.

I also liked the setting of London in 2059. 2059 isn't that far away, so I could see some of the things Shannon had written, happening in London. When I next go to London, I am going to try and track down some of the locations used in this book.

So that concludes my review of The Bone Season. Let me know if you had any similar thoughts to me.

Love,

Carenza x