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The Bone Season
Samantha Shannon
2013 · Fantasy
How it reads
The Bone Season is fantasy (dystopian fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is dark. It goes to difficult places and doesn't look away. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.
It's set in an invented world, in the future, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are identity, power and politics and survival. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.
It opens a series. It ends on a cliffhanger, so have the next book ready. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something dark
- you want a book that pulls you through
- you like disappearing into an invented world
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy, heartwarming or funny
- you want dense, lingering prose
- you hate waiting for a sequel
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- fantasy
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- early career
- Setting: place
- fictional world
- Setting: time
- future
- Mood / feeling
- dark
- Pace
- fast paced
- Tone / weight
- balanced
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, several viewpoints
- Publication era
- recent
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- first in a series
- Themes
- identity, power and politics, survival
- Ending style
- cliffhanger
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
Half a KingJoe AbercrombieShares: fantasy, dark mood, balanced tone, fast paced- A Time of DreadJohn GwynneShares: fantasy, dark mood, balanced tone, fast paced
The Way of ShadowsBrent WeeksShares: fantasy, dark mood, balanced tone, fast paced- Dead IronDevon MonkShares: fantasy, dark mood, balanced tone, fast paced
The Last GraduateNaomi NovikShares: fantasy, dark mood, balanced tone, fast paced
Black SunRebecca RoanhorseShares: fantasy, dark mood, balanced tone, fast paced
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