Bones to the Wind is a riveting coming-of-age adventure with desert monsters, magic, and young people who are tired of being underestimated.

It’s time for the annual Forging, a trial that every child must pass to be considered an adult. Teenagers are split up into groups of five, each piloting a windship, and must hunt down a creature and bring it back to the Grankull before time is up.

Rasia is a badass warrior dreaming of glory, and she wants to come home in record time. She’s determined as hell, cocky, and has the skills to back it up. But she’s never worked well with others.

Unfortunately, she’s paired up with Nico, her childhood nemesis. Nico has impressive water powers, she’s next in line to lead their community, and she’s always been a bit of a self-righteous know-it-all. And Nico’s biggest Forging goal isn’t to be the best of the best like Rasia, but instead to make sure her little brother Kai survives. It’s his last chance, and he faces banishment otherwise.

Their society is always teetering on the brink of starvation, so nobody will miss the kids who don’t return. It’s up to Rasia, Nico, Kai, and their groups to make sure they’re coming home with heads held high. But time is working against them, and there are creatures and humans worse than the tentacled gondas they’ve chosen to hunt in the desert lands.

You’re plopped down into the sand and expected to gently sail away into this world. Nobody is holding your hand and explaining things, but I thought the immersive worldbuilding came in steady bursts and never felt too overwhelming or hard to comprehend.

And the world is SO interesting. I was devouring all the information we got, from the complicated politics of a society created inside the skeleton of a dragon to the tents and outcasts and scavengers to the ferocious creatures that hunt in the desert. There’s so much intricate culture here and a lot of thought went into piecing together this community.

The characters will make you furious and proud from one chapter to the next. Rasia is arrogant and at times a bit cruel, but she also believes in everyone’s potential and is incredibly hardworking and determined. Nico struggles to see the big picture, but cares so deeply for her little brother and also wants to be a better leader for her people. And Kai flip flops between secrecy and excruciating self doubt and then dares to dream. There’s a fascinating web here, and all of their various interactions will keep you guessing. Some characters are awesome and some are unredeemable, but they fill up the pages of this book pretty realistically. 

All the main characters are teenagers (though they will soon be considered adults in their society), and a lot of the middle portion of this journey is sex. They live in a community that encourages sex  (at least for those inside the Grankull) and there are severe consequences to having sex before they’re ready, so this is their first sort of “no adults, no rules” scenario. It’s not SUPER graphic sexual content, but there is a LOT of it and lots of sexual/sex joke-y commentary as well. It just wasn’t something I wanted to read about in depth, so the book really lagged for me in the middle. There’s also some acephobic/arophobic viewpoints held by the characters and their larger society (as an additional content warning heads up). I wanted to get back to the adventure and the other plotlines that had much higher stakes. 

Aside from that lull in the middle (which again, may just come down to personal preference), I thought the pacing here was really strong and the writing was great overall. A little bit of clunky text, but nothing that tripped up the reading experience.

This is the start to a duology and it does leave off on a major cliffhanger. I’m so desperate to know everyone’s fates, and I think that the second half of this story will likely be more politics-heavy which should be engaging. Most of this arc was spent away from their society and in the desert, and the insight we got into the politics was “yikes” at best, so I’m curious to see how they’ll come back and challenge and change their community. 

There’s also the start of a found family forming, and I hope we’ll see some more positive friendships explored on page during part two.

I’d definitely recommend this one to anyone looking for a thrilling fantasy adventure with a heavy dose of romance, great action scenes, and a fascinating society & world! 

CW: death (parent/child), abortion, pregnancy, ableism, slavery, child abuse, homophobia, acephobia, rape, suicidal thoughts/attempt, eating disorder, explicit sexual content (underage)

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)