Bonemender, The [Paperback]

This is a wonderful story combining humans, elves, healing, friendship, prejudice, war, and love. Féolan and Danais, elves, trust their lives in the hands of a human healer, Gabrielle, when Danais is attacked by a wild boar. Gabrielle is a bonemender - a healer with unusual abilities, not seen in most humans. While recovering, Féolan approaches Gabrielle's father, the King, with some distressing news - the people of a neighboring country are mounting forces for an attack. Not sure whether or not to trust the elves, scouts are sent to evaluate the situation - never to return. The country starts preparing for war, including the bonemenders, while Feolan and Danais continue on their journey. But Gabrielle and Féolan's hearts are torn now that they are no longer together. How will either of them survive the upcoming battles? I am not usually a fan of the war/battle stories but it isn't the focus of this story. I thought this a delightful young adult story written well. Next up is The Bonemender's Oath.

When I picked up this book I was unsure whether I would enjoy it. The plot line was generic, a younge woman who is extraordinary with no real reason for it, but I thought that would leave room for interesting twists curtesy of Mrs. Bennett. I was sorely, sorely disappointed.

Let's start with the characters themselves; Gabrielle the protagonist is a boring character. She is a princess, an extraordinary bonemender, compassionate, unprejudiced, strong willed and strong minded, has a wonderful voice and is exremely beautiful. Therein lies the problem. Instead of giving us a multifaceted character that grows and learns to overcome their faults and problems Mrs. Bennette gives us a perfect character with a great lack of faults, or none at all to be honest. It is a lazy way to create a character as if to say "Here is the lead, have your pick of stuff to like about her." I was not rooting for Gabrielle I could not relate to her at all. I relate to quirks and faults.

Fealon and Danais are the elves. Feolan falls in love with Gabrielle and their romance is stilted and unbelievable. As is most of the book and their conversations.

Danais is the reason they meet Gabrielle when he is gored by a boar, very early in the story. This, which should have been interesting as Danais struggles for his life read as; oops blood. Good luck! Found a girl with crazy healing skills. HE LIVES! (Unessesary healer babble) It obvious that he will live. Gabrielle can do anything!

The most interesting character was Tristan, Gabrielle's younger brother. He was much more multifaceted and the only character I invested in.

I did not care about the characters, I did not care what happened in the convinent and loose ending and if one is not invested enough in the book to care for the characters and their future than the book isn't much good.

Over all: Generic, overdone plot, Flat characters, Slow climax, stilted speech. Boring story. I won't be reading the sequal.

One and a half stars out of five.

From the moment I started reading this book until the end of the book, I could predict everything that was going to happen; In other words, this book was too full of cliches for my liking. I personally love fantasy, and I hoped to read some fresh materials, but this book definitely did not bring anything new.

Starting with Gabrielle's mysterious birth to the generic plot line, I felt like I was just reading a poorly-written (and sappy) romance novel. I honestly could not read more than 50 pages per day because of the sappiness in some parts.

Overall, the story is extremely simple, very easy to follow (and foreshadow), and cliche, so I would only suggest elementary school kids or ESL students to read this book.