In the beginning I was strongly reminded why I prefer to read high fantasy in my native language, it took me a couple of chapters to work out which unknown words are just the nautical vocabulary that my English lacks and which are Barker's unique Hundred Islands words. I got there, eventually - but never got used to ships being male in this world, even though it makes sense in context of the world.
The worldbuilding is the strength of this book. I'm not the most avid fantasy reader anymore, but at least to me the ideas seemed fresh and creative. They make sense, fit well together and we get a vivid glimpse into a world that is very different from ours, but not less harsh. 
Unfortunately, the prose itself is just not very good. The style feels clumsy while desperately trying to be regal and maybe even poetic and in the end it just reads pretentious without any real finesse. 

High seas adventure and a beautiful writing style.

The book caught me early with a lovely hook, then took its time with world and character building. The early parts of the book were often a bit confusing due to all the new terms and description of the world, but didn't linger on any one for too long. By the 30-40% mark I found myself quite comfortable in this new world and enjoying it. The bits and pieces of the world coming together one at a time, forming a clearer and clearer picture pulled me through the pages.

The characters are fun and deep. While Joron is the PoV, I loved learning about the other characters as the story progressed, more than Joron himself for a good portion of the book.

The action was fun and engaging without being drawn out. I am quite excited to read the rest of this series.

My brain is just a pile of goo at this point in my pregnancy, but even though this took me altogether too long to read, I enjoyed it. The first section was a tad confusing due to the worldbuilding, but I ended up loving it. I'm curious to see where the discussion of gender goes in the next book.

Really enjoyed this book! The world building was incredible, with all kinds of animals, plants, systems, titles, etc all new to the reader! Absolute need more dark, high fantasy pirate books like The Bone Ships. I was a little confused towards the beginning due to the unfamiliarity of the world, but as the book continued I began to get a better understand of everything. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy, especially books on the darker side of the genre!

After an interesting start The Bone Ships pretty quickly becomes a rather dull slog. The writing is fine but there's no great depth to it and it feels rather clunky and obvious in how the characters motivations are portrayed, everything feels a little too signposted. 

The characters for the most part are incredibly flat too, Joron has the most development over the course of the book but it doesn't feel earned and no one else is really given any depth. Meas stays the same incredible badass character she starts out as but nothing about her ever actually feels inspiring. Everyone else, bar the underused Guilame, has no actual characterisation beyond their often stated injuries, deformities, and birth defects etc which play a huge part in the hierarchy of this world. Presumably this was intended to mark just how cruel this world is meant to be but that never really landed and the author really likes bringing it up, characters like Farys are rarely mentioned without some accompanying line about their burnt face and they seem to have no other aspect to their character. 

There are also quite a few typos and plot holes throughout. The Ship wife of the Cruel Waters being a Gaunt Islander with one leg, something treated with disdain and banishment to a life of begging or shoe making in the Hundred Isles frequently being invited aboard Tide Child and at no point any of the crew wondering hang on that's a bit strange. The Gaunt Islanders having no four rib ships meaning therefore Tide Child will be quickly recognised as an enemy ship being is a plot point despite previous and subsequent mention of Wavebreaker the Gaunt Islander four rib ship... 

Chapter 33
“I only saw them from a distance but the four-ribber, I think it is the Wavebreaker"

Chapter 34
“The flag will not fool them, not for long. Once someone who knows the ships of the Gaunt Islands well is consulted they will know they do not have a four-ribber."

Chapter 35
"Meas kept Tide Child on a course converging with the Gaunt Islanders, level with the leading four-ribber." 

Sigh

As for the positives, the world building is quite interesting initially but even that is somewhat overdone to the point it interferes with the flow of reading given just how many aspects of this world the author wanted to make unique. It's not terrible but it is a disappointing read overall.