An Epic Story of Ivory and Bone

Ivory And Bone

Julie Eshbaugh

Goodreads Review:

A prehistoric fantasy—with allusions to Pride and Prejudice.

Hunting, gathering, and keeping his family safe—that’s the life seventeen-year-old Kol knows. Then bold, enigmatic Mya arrives from the south with her family, and Kol is captivated. He wants her to like and trust him, but any hopes of impressing her are ruined when he makes a careless—and nearly grave—mistake. However, there’s something more to Mya’s cool disdain…a history wrought with loss that comes to light when another clan arrives. With them is Lo, an enemy from Mya’s past who Mya swears has ulterior motives.

As Kol gets to know Lo, tensions between Mya and Lo escalate until violence erupts. Faced with shattering losses, Kol is forced to question every person he’s trusted. One thing is for sure: this was a war that Mya or Lo—Kol doesn’t know which—had been planning all along.

My Thoughts:

I can't rave about this one enough!  I knew from seeing it first promoted a few months back that I had to read this!  A pre-historic YA novel?  I would've never even guessed a plot of this nature could exist in this genre and yet here it was!  

Julie's articulate writing in the second person's POV is superb.  I was a little apprehensive because I don't ever recall reading such a POV before, but I immediately fell in love with her writing.  Very non-discursive, Julie gets to the point quickly.  An empathetic Kol meets Mya and is done.  I was so jealous over his immediate feelings for her when her attitude was just, well an attitude from the beginning.  He had done nothing to deserve to such rudeness. He knew it was it though, and I love characters that are so thought out, that when describing how they feel is in play, not many words are needed.  

Mya was a complex character.  I didn't like her at all at first and was relieved when Kol met Lo, but when a character's heart belongs to another, there's no amount of distractions that will sway them from their desired love.  I loved that about Kol.  Oh.  That's right, I was talking about Mya haha Ok, well I didn't like her at first, but slowly I could see that she was just a guarded girl and has her reasons why.  Which, I know myself and probably many other girls can relate to, so in that sense, I grew closer to Mya as the story continued.  But when Low comes along, I'm ready for her kindness.

Lo is new and sweet and innocent.  She's beautiful with way less attitude than Mya but Lo is by no means perfect. Is she more  perfect for Kol than Mya?  We like to hope so, because Kol is well, Kol.  Perfect and ready to take his rightful place in his tribe and just needs the right person to be with him.  Did I mention that Kol was my favorite character here? lol I think I made that probably obnoxiously clear at this point.  

Julie has such an amazing talent in writing.  She also apparently knows how to research her topics very well, giving so many historical examples of hunting and gathering and explaining tribal rituals in such an expertly way.  She eloquently expresses how her character's are feeling in such a way that you can see the pulse in Mya's temple when she's furious.  You can see the flush in Kol's eyes as he gazes into Mya's hardened eyes or on Lo's sweet face.  The poetic language used to describe such a time period, it's flora and fauna, was very captivating as well.  I pictured myself standing there in the fields, watching the hunters gather and stalk the beastly mammoths.   

I am more than excited to read the second in this series and highly recommend this one to any young adult ready for a new experience in this genre!