I NEED EVERYTHING // The Bone Season Series Novella Reviews

Hi everyone!As I mentioned in my review of The Mime Order, after I finished The Bone Season, I made the call to read both the Novellas that THE BRILLIANT Samantha Shannon published in the world of The Bone Season because, well, I NEED EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS WORLD AND THEN SOME. #addicted.

There are two novellas, one of how Paige Mahoney became the mollisher of I-4 (The heir when the Mime-Lord dies) and the second the pamphlet published by Jaxon on the degrees of Clairvoyance.

Title: The Pale Dreamer
Author: Samantha Shannon
Publication Date: December 6th 2016
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Part of a Series?: Yes, Novella 0.5/7 of The Bone Season
I Got A Copy Through: I bought it!
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Amazon US || Amazon UK || Google Books || Kobo
Blurb Description: In the perilous heart of Scion London, a dangerous and valuable poltergeist is on the loose – and it must be caught before chaos erupts on the streets of the capital. Here, the clairvoyant underworld plays by its own rules, and rival gangs will stop at nothing to win such a magnificent prize.
Sixteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working for Jaxon Hall, the most notorious mime-lord in the city. He thinks she is hiding a powerful gift, but it refuses to surface. Maybe this is the opportunity she needs to secure her position in his gang, the Seven Seals… 
I've never been much of a novella/ short story person. It's just so hard to get sucked into a story and then come out from that tiny tale feeling like you're missing somthing, and that the characters you JUST started rooting for are gone. POOF. 

Basically, I rarely ever read Novellas.

And yet, being so immersed in the world of Paige Mahoney, I thought buying and reading this book could DO ME NO HARM. I was also pretty sure that The Mime Order will also have all the characters that are in the prequel novella and it was also a great chance to not be overwhelmed by it all the new-ness of things.

Truth be told, I LOVED THIS NOVELLA. 

For the first time ever, it didn't feel like an incomplete story - it was just detailed enough. I loved getting to know a younger Paige and how she found her place in the Seven Dials, and how she ended up becoming the Mollisher of I-4. Her young age, her desire to please Jaxon Hall and her nervousness about being Good were clearly put forth and I LOVED IT.

You should probably read this book before or after The Bone Season but DEFINITELY before The Mime Order. A fun, insightful read.

***

Title: On The Merits Of Unnaturalness
Author: An Obscure Writer as told to Samantha Shannon
Publication Date: January 27th 2015
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Part of a Series?: Yes, A Pamphlet Published in the world of of The Bone Season
I Got A Copy Through: I bought it!
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Amazon US || Amazon UK || Kobo || Google Books
Blurb Description: Be aware, my good Reader, that this Pamphlet, no matter how controversial its content, must never fall into enemy Hands.
The most important piece of clairvoyant literature written in the twenty-first century, On the Merits of Unnaturalness is a pamphlet first published anonymously in 2031 by Jaxon Hall, the voyant who would later become the mime-lord known as the White Binder.
Hall was the first to index both known and supposed forms of Unnaturalness, resulting in the classification of the Seven Orders. This controversial piece of literature spread across the voyant underworld like a plague, revolutionising the syndicate but also creating discord in the form of brutal gang wars between the newly-divided categories, the scars of which can still be seen today.
Revelatory and subversive, On the Merits of Unnaturalness is a must-read for any reader with a desire to further immerse themselves in the incredible world of Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season.
I honestly read this because all of the different orders of clairvoyance and the categories under them was sort of a question mark for me while I read The Bone Season and so I bought this off of Amazon yesterday (HOORAY for Gift Cards!)

While the foreword began really well, and EVERYTHING about the language dripped the Mime Lord, Jaxon Hall who I'm DYING to learn more about because we didn't see nearly enough of him in book one, the actual descriptions started flying over my head.

There were JUST SO MANY NAMES and different kinds of Voyants that I'm pretty sure I've already forgotten most of them. 

I suppose this will be a useful book to have when we meet new Voyants in the next few books, and it will be sort of a guide, but it wasn't very entertaining reading material! 
Have you started the ABSOLUTE Marvel that is The Bone Season?
Do you usually read novellas? What are some of your favourite?

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