Book Review: Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E Cooney

🌱Question:

🤦 Can light-skinned people please write dark-skinned people that I actually LIKE?! Please?! Ugh! (Except for you Shelly Laurenston – you are excellent 👏👏👏)

I am so upset. This book was going so well, so, so well. Then midway there were some cracks and further along some crevices… and although we were told Lanie was now 23, she still behaved as though she were 15. As though she had learnt NOTHING of her time with her family members. Learnt NOTHING of her time with the accounts written by the long dead horrible Stoneses. Learnt nothing from her own experiences. How dreadful that the book decided to cave to the very annoying and completely unnecessary ‘formula’! Ugh! I was so ready to give this book a 5/5… but it just had to disappoint me!

Lanie, who we begin to like and respect proves herself to be an idiot. A wasteful bumbling idiot and I have lost interest in this whole story 52% in. What a pity!

😬😬😬 This is the second YA fantasy book I have read where light-skinned authors INSISTED on making their dark-skinned female main character EXTRA EXTRA nasty and unwashed. COVERED in dirt and filth. WTF?!

🌱 Connections:

~ When Wishes Bleed – A society in which witches, spells, abilities and a variety of gods and goddess are common. Leaving home to go to the big city on an incredible adventure and then frolicking with the Prince. Things coming out of hand and a race to fix mistakes. 

~ All the Murmuring Bones – A dilapidated house housing the last of a long well-know, well-despised family, now left in the hands of a final daughter who must save herself, protect the reputation of her family and grow in power and wisdom. 

~ The Bone Witch – A young necromancer grows in her power by overcoming obstacles, difficulties and continuous loss. 

🌱 Themes:

~ Family and Friends

~ Relationships and Loyalty

~ Magic and Abilities

🌱 Audience:

~ YA, New Adults, and tolerant adults

🌱 The Meh:

~ Loss of respect for MC 🤦

~ A bunch of men RIGHTFULLY calling her stupid 🙄

~ I am NOT reading the next book. What a waste of my expectations! 

~ This woman has ‘I am useless’ carved into her bones, lud

~ The lack of bathing EWWWW and making her EXTRA dirty for WHY?! (so fed up with this!)

~ I wish the author had done more research into describing dark skin colours for the many beings that were included – the fixation on mediocrely using ‘black skin’ and ‘black-brown’ skin for NUMEROUS characters, left MUCH to be desired in the otherwise highly enchanting descriptions of colours. It really is was a heavy disappointment. 😔

~ A tad too much fluff, time wasting and anticipated idiotic decisions 😬

~ Wasted expectations! 

🌱 Verdict:

~ Ehem, so this book did not sit well with me. SPECIFICALLY because it does a lot of things I DESPISE in YA fantasy books. It DOES have a lot of positive aspects and IS a journey of a fantastical story and a fabulously developed world. There is much to admire and appreciate as can be seen below. If you are not like me, the book may be in the 4 stars, if you ARE like me, this is a highly frustrating and dissatisfying read and a 2.5 – 3 😒 ~ Give it a read though.

🌱Quotes: 

Check out these absolutely perfect names 😆🤭

~ Abandon Hope Stones

~ Unnatural Stones

~ Miscellaneous Immiscible Stones

~ Amanita Muscaria Stones

~ Digitalis Stones

~ Ham-Handed Stones

~ Opscheplooper Stones

🎁 Thank you @netgalley for the gift.