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The Bone Doll's Twin (The Tamír Triad, #1)

Lynn Flewelling

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Aug 11, 2008 Mir rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

I would have rated this a bit higher since it was quite well done, but not that much happened it for the length. It was very definitely a set-up for later books, and I really prefer that books in a series be better able to stand on their own, especially the first book. I dislike the approach to a trilogy that makes it one really long novel separated into three for the sake of shortness (or maybe for the sake of selling more items). In short (heh): good story, but could have been edited down quit ...more

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Sep 23, 2008 Grace rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, supernatural, lgbt

I've been meaning to read this book for ages. If my sister hadn't lost it *ahem* I would have read it a lot sooner. I'm really glad I did get around to finally reading it because it was a great book.

One of my favorite things about this book is that it is truly Young Adult Literature. This is what I think real YA books should be. It isn't YA because it has a pointless romance plot or annoyingly angsty characters it's YA because the themes are too mature for children. I, at least, would not have I've been meaning to read this book for ages. If my sister hadn't lost it *ahem* I would have read it a lot sooner. I'm really glad I did get around to finally reading it because it was a great book.

One of my favorite things about this book is that it is truly Young Adult Literature. This is what I think real YA books should be. It isn't YA because it has a pointless romance plot or annoyingly angsty characters it's YA because the themes are too mature for children. I, at least, would not have been able to read this as a kid. Sure, it was about a child but it was dark, scary and had some sex scenes in it. But unlike many "teen" books, the sex felt completely necessary to advance the plot. It also briefly dealt with homosexuality. I'm not saying that this is a "mature" topic by any means, but it is dealt with maturely in the book. I also appreciated that the implications that one of the main characters is gay was not beaten into the reader's head.

I really like the overall theme of sacrifice and questionable acts done for a belief in some sort of "greater good." The characters sincerely believe in what they are doing but they are forced to commit evils in order to achieve it. I would say that Tobin and Ki are an exception to this. I would have liked to see a little more moral ambiguity in these two.

My two main complaints would be 1) pacing and 2) some minor issues with the writing. For pacing, I thought that the book was slow in some parts. I kept forgetting how old Tobin was and was continually surprised by how slow time was passing in the book. I felt that there were stretches of time that could have been glossed over because not that much of interest was happening.

For the writing, it certainly wasn't bad. My only issue was that it was repetitive at times. The same description or sentence structure would be used too closely together and it was a bit jarring.

Overall, really good book. I read it fairly quickly and often read for long stretches of time. I appreciated greatly that there weren't annoying cliff hangers at every turn (another symbol of a "teen" book) but it still managed to captivate my attention. I also liked the seamless changes of perspective from chapter to chapter.

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