The Bone Season Series by Samantha Shannon – A Read Along discussion

What do you think of Paige’s cohorts in Jaxon’s gang as she describes them? Was joining it and becoming part of London's voyant criminal underground a good idea?

It seems to me it was a good move for Paige to join. In that world some protection and way of living was needed for her.

To my mind Jaxon is a devious character that is capable of showing whatever side of his personality is called for at any particular time. As such he can charm and terrify in equal measure. Considering the world in which he operates prizes conformity and unquestioning belief of the ruling party it is not surprising that he is quite beguiling, particularly to someone of Paige’s age and relative inexperience.

The world in which she lives is one that seems singularly frustrating to teens who would want to find outlets for youthful rebellion and self expression so someone like Jaxon is going to have an almost Pied Piper effect on the youths that come under his protection. That having been said, it is clear that they can only claim that protection as long as they are useful to him and this is where his ruthless streak comes out. It can be seen in the way that he deals with Zeke and Nadine Sáenz that, when the situation calls for it, he is completely single minded in his pursuit of whatever it is that he is after and that any suffering caused along the way is collateral damage. But he fosters a familial bond within his gang that seems to indicate that something along these lines was missing in the gang members lives before they met him.

Whilst we have had only a brief overview of the backgrounds of the other members of Jaxon’s gang, it’s probably not too great a stretch to imagine they have all had life experiences that have caused them to become alienated from their families enough that those bonds have become loosened to the extent that Jaxon has been able to recruit them in to the fold.

For the most part, with the possible exception of Danica who seems to be closer to Jaxon than the rest of them, they all seem to be very similar to Paige in that they are late teens, early twenties and looking for something to do in a world where you are either destined for great things or tossed on the scrap heap at a very early age.

I want to say that Paige joining a gang was probably a bad move but considering her near-unique gifts I’m guessing it was inevitable that she would have been either recruited or press-ganged in to one at some stage. She would have needed protection from someone at some point and from what we have seen Jaxon seems to be the lesser of a number of evils when it comes to gang leaders (although if some one from another gang had a similar meeting with him to the one that Paige had with Hector I’m guessing the outcome would have been pretty similar.)

I suspect the story is going to become darker as time goes on and as such we are going to see a similar change in Jaxon.