Book Review: The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon

The Song Rising sounds awkward to me. Maybe This Song Rising.

Following a bloody battle against foes on every side, Paige Mahoney has risen to the dangerous position of Underqueen, ruling over London's criminal population. 

But having turned her back on Jaxon Hall, and with vengeful enemies still at large, the task of stabilising the fractured underworld has never seemed so challenging.

Little does Paige know that her reign may be cut short by the introduction of Senshield, a deadly technology that spells doom for the clairvoyant community and the world as they know it.

This is the third book in The Bone Season series (I have reviewed the previous ones if you're new to the series The Bone Season and The Mime Order), so spoilers for the first two. This is the first of the novels that I've listened to on audiobook. The voice actor,  Alana Kerr Collins does a pretty good job of capturing Paige's voice and does all of the other books so no jarring changes (and hopefully none in the future).

Despite, liking Collins it took me a while to finish this book. It technically took me eight months to read this book exactly according to my Goodreads. 20.9.2017 to the 20.5.2018 for a book that's twelve hours and a bit long. I got to the Chapter 7/25% in by 31st of December and didn't properly go back till May. I just didn't want to. I went after other audiobooks, I wasted time repeatedly going through the oddest and rubbish opinions my local library has (it's rubbish for me, there's like no fantasy or horror of any kind), instead of listening to this book already downloaded to my phone.

Though, with the next novel not coming out till 2020 so not like it a big deal, with a planned six books from the start, I do wish they had been coming out more frequently. I don't think its time, more the last of pacing. The start of the book is political stuff as Paige recovers and takes control of the Mime Order.

In terms of world-building, we get to see more of other Scion control locations and what has gone down in the past. That was interesting and seems to be more where the series is going.

We get new characters that are fine, though once again I couldn't say who for sure was actually introduced in this book. The old characters do a lot of searching. I didn't feel that connection to them this book.

Slight Spoiler, Highlight to see: I was also half convinced that Shannon was going to kill off a main character and did not care. Half-convinced in I thought she just might do it.

I had completely forgotten that Paige is still only meant to be like 19 when all this shit is going down. I guess that's because of the time that takes for the books to be written and I've been slowly ageing and ageing away from Paige. Though, she was already in the future so she was always going to be the youngest of us two.

The ending is quite a cliffhanger, in tune with the other books. I'm kinda disappointed due to what's been set up for the last book, but I also get the choice.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for Gaelic Dungeons. This novel was okay once I actually listened to it. I might just wait until the series is finished before picking more novels. I want to know what happens, but all at once might work better.


I paid for this book with my own damn money thing time. I probably would have request it off NetGalley if I had saw it.