The Bone Witch

This wasn't for me. Might be for someone else but it took me two months to drag myself through this carastrophe of a book. Normally I'd suffer through the whole trilogy but if I have to suffer through two more books like this, I may never read again in my lifetime.

The book spends a lot of time waffling and trying to emulate a PG version of Memoirs of a Geisha and I haven't come to a solid conclusion as to why. MC, Tea, is supposed to be a kind of rare bone witch/dark asha (this world's word for mage) person. Where everyone simultaneously hates her but at the same time nobody hates her. Anyway! Her special powers enable her to kill these monstrous creatures called daeva that are basically capable of destroying armies and kingdoms. So she gets introduced to the special mage club by which she is taken in by all women household run by an older matron. Whereby MC incurs debts that she then has to pay off when she becomes a fully fledged asha. Her time as an apprentice is spending learning skills like singing and dancing! Okay, there is a combat skill in there too but the emphasis is on the singing and dancing and of course being dressed in the best clothes and jewellery. So that she may attend parties and entertain guests.

Erm... what was I reading again?

I think the two POV's (future Tea and present Tea) hinder the book and take some of the suspense out. In the future section she often summarises what is about to happen in the next chapter. It is an odd writing choice.

I didn't get a good sense of characters. Most of them don't have a distinct voice. None of them are particularly likable or dislikable. They're just... there. A romance is sort of going on but it is about as lively as a dead dog nailed to an armchair. Not even remotely convincing and the only way you know there's a romance is that you're told, repeatedly.

I wouldn't recommend this book. It's got some interesting ideas but that's about it.

Read at your own peril.

** spoiler alert ** Finally finished this thing! Thoughts: I've been reading quite a few reviews on Goodreads and I must say I pretty much agree with most of them. Nothing really happens the entire novel, and then the last 20 pages you're supposed to be excited cause there's a super short and mildly confusing fight scene? Man, way too many details about very minimally important things. I don't think I've ever read so many damn details about a piece of clothing. I ended up giving it 2 stars, but more like 2.5 stars. Could've cut out about 200 pages of "developpement" and added some real plot. Fair effort in creating this fantasy world - but basically just Memoirs of a Geisha with magic. Shmeh.

I’d give this 4.5 stars but marking it as 5 cause I want the ratings to go up. This story was amazing!! I have no idea why the overall ratings aren’t higher, and this bothers me cause I do judge my books based off rating but for this story I went on the rating of a reviewer I trust and I’m damn glad I did. I honestly cannot fault this book at all, the world building was amazing (it did take me a bit to get used to the terms) and all the characters are great. I think maybe I loved this so much because the world building was very similar to what goes on in “memoirs of a geisha” which I also loved. I’m literally ordering the next two books ASAP.

What an incredible adventure! An ending led up to with a huge twist I didn't expect & a final scene I hoped for for many chapters as well. Worth a read and I cannot wait for book 2!

Intricate world building, wonderful foreshadowing. Goes back and forth between past and present.

This is one of my favorite series. It took me a while to get into the first book, but the second and third books are just amazing. I think I read the second book in one day because I was just obsessed. I highly recommend reading The Bone Witch series!!

I kept thinking it was over and then it wasn't. There were like 3 climaxes, which threw me off. Other than that, pretty solid read.

She hadn't meant to raise her brother from the dead...and everything changed after that day. Follow Tea as she's whisked away to learn the ways of the asha, finds romance, and catch glimpses into her modern day as we find out this story is being told to a bard in Tea's modern day. Fall in love with the cast of eclectic characters, the world building, and the story as you wonder at the mystery of what spurned Tea to her current state?

Why did I pick this book to read?

I was looking for a fantasy story more to my tastes at my library. Something darker maybe. The cover art, along with the synopsis drew me in.

What is this book about?

The story is two pronged. It follows Tea, both as she grows up, and after she has been exiled from her home. Jumping back and forth between both time periods once in each chapter as more is revealed. Tea is basically a dark witch with the power of necromancy. Loved and feared.

What did I like about this book?

1. The way the story was told - Done through the perspective of Tea, exiled, telling a bard of her past. This pushed the mystery of why she was exiled in the first place. Kept the pace easy to follow as well.

2. The characters - Most of the characters are kept simple unless they are needed for the story. Kept it easier to focus on who was important. Tea, being the main focus, was easy to like and sympathize with.

What did I dislike about this book?

Honestly, there wasn't anything I didn't really dislike, other than it ended before her full story could be told, since it is part of a series.

Would I recommend reading this book?

Yes!

3.5 if I'm being honest, it wasn't life-changing, but I it kept me entertained and its concept was pretty new to me. It kind of reminds me of Game of Thrones but with witches - and I might be biased but I love the dark witches so much or "asha" as they are called in this book. The book goes back and forth between the present and the past, with the present being Tea recounting how she became exiled to a journalist (best way to describe him). The past is how she came into her power and training to be an asha. Because of this, (and it's not just this book) but many books that do this seem like they are explaining a lot and I can understand where people might not like it. The first few chapters were information overload, and I think the author could have spread it out a bit more. One thing I really liked about the book, there were a few plot twists that I did not see coming at all. THAT ENDING! I never saw it coming, EVER. The story really hooked me, despite it being slow, but the author has some beautiful writing and I can't wait to read the next one.

2.8 maybe.... This book could not keep my attention for too long. My ADHD hit like crazy as i read the book. It had an amazing concept, the powers are super awesome, there are some characters I liked but none of them got to the point where I can say I connected with them. I did like the intervals of the POV of another character kind of looking into the future. Overall it was just too slow with me, very little character development, and there was absolutely no plot, but the cliffhanger was great.. not sure if I will read the next book.

Definitely interested in continuing on with this one

This was almost certainly the most interesting fantasy I've read in a while, and on the whole, I really liked it. The worldbuilding was some of the best I've seen! It was complex and fascinating and very unlike anything I've seen before, and I think Asian-inspired? So that was very cool. I did get a bit confused with the magic system but I don't believe that's necessarily a fault. Complex magic systems are awesome, yo. I really liked Tea and all the other asha and it was wonderful getting to know them all. The asha system was great and really different. Like I said: amazing worldbuilding. I did find that it was quite slow at parts, and not all the present-day narrations managed to hold my interest; honestly, I just skimmed a lot of them. (view spoiler)[I was also quite frustrated with the ending because like, so many things came straight out of nowhere in the present narration and I felt like we had so, so much more to catch up on before we could even get the context for present-day Tea. I felt totally lost. (hide spoiler)]

I actually really enjoyed this book and can’t wait to start the second book. While I found it hard to understand since I don’t have a physical copy but audiobook form. I will get myself a physical copy and make this a re-read in 2022.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I started this book. To be honest, I picked it for the cover. The simplicity and covers of the trilogy really drew my eye.

But I ended up quite enjoying this book. Very rarely is necromancy magic given to the main character of a story and portrayed as a heroic trait, albeit looked down upon heroic trait. The dual time lines had me a little caught off guard at the start, but I appreciated here the two narrators (in the audiobook) to show not only change of POV but also of time period. 

It’s odd for me too, to have a main character at a younger age that I find quite naive and infuriating, but have her only barely older self feel much wiser and level headed. 

Overall, however, I enjoyed this book and the world it created. I liked the focus on death/dark magic beyond the classic elemental types and how they might fit together. 

A really intriguing story. The narrative style took me by surprise, in a good way, as it drives me onwards. I found Emily Zoo Zeller's performance as Tea (which I thought was Tia throughout the entire audiobook) a touch too soft-spoken. But overall, I did enjoy the narrators, Zeller and Will Damron. I can see that there has been comments about the descriptions of everything — that didn't bother me, but that's perhaps because I'm listening to it whilst working. The one point that is the downside for me, is the fact that I felt that the ending was too abrupt. The Bone Witch feels like a set-up book.

4.5 Stars I really enjoyed this one. I loved the setting and the characters although some were unlikable I really liked them all. The writing was beautiful yet also simple enough to get through. Neither being a bad thing. The plot kept me hooked from the first chapter. I’m very glad I read this one and can’t wait to see where the rest of the series takes me.

This was such a slow and bland read. I don’t really plan on reading the next one, but we’ll see. I will admit Fox’s and Tea’s sibling relationship was fun to read about and had some kind of potential.

4.5

Rating: 3.5

I just kinda lost interest in the story a little bit towards the end. This want to continue the series

so this was good and had elements to it that reminded me of other books but not in a bad way. my issue is just that I dont care? i’m not invested in any characters and/or their success/storylines. I don’t regret reading it but I won’t be continuing with the series either.

REREAD IN 2019: I originally gave this 3.5 stars, but after reading it again, I think I’m bumping it up to a full 4 stars. I considered giving it 4.5 or even 5 stars, but there are still a few slower spots and things felt a bit awkward at the end. But I really do like this book a lot! Actual rating is 3.5 stars I wasn't sure what to expect when I started The Bone Witch. And to be honest, it isn't necessarily the kind of book I'd pick up on my own based off the description alone. But, after hearing so many good things about it, I knew I had to give it a read. And I'm so glad I did! The Bone Witch isn't quite like anything I've read. It seems to have a little bit of everything: romance, political intrigue, magic, monsters, and necromancy. And oddly enough, they all work together incredibly well. Rin Chupeco created a rich, beautiful world that both terrifies and delights. I adored the characters in this book. Tea is a wonderful main character and I'm so intrigued with her. And the rest of the characters are all so fascinating too. Each one has their own unique personality and I love it. This book does tend to move a bit slow at times. While for the most part I really enjoyed the story and world, there were times when I got a little bored. But overall, I thought this was a great book and I'm interested to see where the story goes next! Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Hmmm, I'm a bit torn on this one. I think for me it's ultimately a 3.5. The cover art gets a full 5 stars though, omg. Aside from some grammatical issues that I hope will be edited out, the world-building felt lazy. I feel like Chupeco spent so much energy in crafting Tea & supporting characters that everything else became a convenient mish-mash of stuff that was inspired by (and, in many cases, entirely appropriated from) Earth cultures. I'm simply not impressed by Earth-sim fantasy worlds anymore, so this was disappointing. On top of that, there's very little action in this book. It's clear from early on that this is meant to be the first book in a series, but going through page after page of exposition is just tedious! There are pages upon pages describing (in detail) the variety of fabric designs used in huas made for Tea, the dazzling array of hair combs, etc. etc. & I just... It's doubly irritating because - again, as stated before, this is the first book in a series - there's little payoff at the end for all this. There IS a great action moment & plot twist at the end, and the characters Chupeco creates are unique and diverse. I think this series has potential, but this first book left me lukewarm. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!