Tags
Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Release Date: March 7th, 2016
400 Pages
Synopsis: When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with and older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.
In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha–one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles…and make a powerful choice.
Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Name of the Wind in this brilliant new fantasy series by Rin Chupeca!
How gorgeous is that cover? Naturally that’s what intitially captured my attention, but I also enjoyed Rin Chupeco’s The Girl From the Well and The Suffering, so when I heard all the buzz about The Bone Witch, I knew I had to try it. I was really expecting to become completely enthralled but instead was for the most part bored, which made this a difficult book to finish. I actually did like the beginning which tells the reader how young Tea, pronounced “Tay-uh”, becomes a Bone Witch. Unfortunately though, this interesting storyline is quickly overtaken by overly descriptive world building which slows the pace down to a crawl. For any of you who have been following me for awhile, you know that I think world building is a very important part of any novel, especially fantasy. But when you have interesting characters whose story fades into the background because there’s so much detail being given in regards to the setting, it can make for a tedious read. For example every outfit that Tea wears receives at least a paragraph of description, yet once she’s a teenager, all you’re really told is that she’s being instructed how to dance, sing and wear clothes, be a servant, and every once in a while use black magic to battle monsters. Somewhere buried in all this there’s a romance. I think there is anyway, because while I don’t remember it, suddenly she winds up running off with this guy. To be honest there’s some things I may have missed because by the time I was halfway through the book, I found myself starting to skim some of the pages in a desperate attempt to reach the end. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that The Bone Witch wound up not being for me, because I really liked the characters of Tea and Fox in the opening chapters. I’m basically giving it 2 stars because of the cover, and the beginning, as well as its diversity. This is definitely going to be either a trilogy or series, so if my library winds up carrying it I may take a peek at the second book. As always, if you’re intrigued by the premise, please don’t base your decision of whether you want to read this solely on my opinion. There’s quite a few reviews already up on Goodreads and some of them are quite positive.
By Hook Or By Book 
You must be logged in to post a comment.