DNF Review--The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city—Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly—as soldiers in their army.

Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine—a young woman learning to harness her powers in a world where everything has been taken from her. It also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

Pretty much every time I pick up a book it's because I want to read it and love it! But then every once in awhile, there comes one of those books that I just can't get into, no matter how hard I try to carry on and read the pages. Soon, I'm just reading the pages...I'm not immersed in the story. I haven't gotten hooked. Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season was rated high with some people, already a NYT bestseller, yet...I just could not get into the story.

Perhaps in part it was due to a recent review I read where the reader wasn't super thrilled with the story either. But I felt prepared at least for some confusion with a few things but, there was a lot more confusion then I thought.

This takes place in the future in London, so there's slang and other vocabulary I wasn't familiar with, but there is a helpful glossary in back, but yet when I looked up the first word that was giving me pause and confusion...it wasn't there! So I took it to just be slang I had no idea of it's meaning, but carried on some more.

Though even the talks of "magic" and all its levels left me confused. It's not as simple as Harry Potter and just have really awkward sounding names that are impossible to spell (after reading it once). The magical hierarchy structure was a bit daunting as well. I couldn't figure out what words meant what, what levels indicated what...basically this read just became all too confusing for me. And that's not what I like in my reads. Reading should be fun and enjoyable.

While I love encountering new worlds with different setups then ours, I can't always get into them when they become so rich in details. Those details being more about the setup and not the actual surroundings. The hardcore government setup and magical structure ways...it all just got to be too much. I read 90 pages before calling it quits. 

The heroine, Paige, wasn't a bad sort either. I liked her from what I knew, but then again I felt like I didn't really know her after those 90 pages. I didn't hate her, but there's still that not knowing much about her that I couldn't get into. And I can't even begin to form into words how I felt about the Warden who had only started showing up at this point in the story. Even after his character was established, we still didn't see much of him once he claimed Paige as "his".

I rarely ever DNF a book, in fact when I searched my posts for DNF reviews--to see if I should write one--I've only ever written 3. That says a lot I think...so this is number 4 of my DNF reviews. There may have been others that were DNF'd but I didn't read much more than a chapter or two before calling it quits. So unfortunately, despite wanting to love this book and series, it just wasn't for me.

Though I would still encourage anyone and everyone else to read it if it struck their fancy! I believe this was "advertised" as a grown up Harry Potter series, in that it's Harry Potter for adults. Though the heroine is 18, so go figure how I heard that ad ploy, but whatever.

And as always, there is no rating for this since I could not finish it. Now onto the next read!