Overall: 🐢🐢🐢🐢
Storyline:
Writing Style:
Character Development:
World-building:
“Then perhaps we should carve a world one day where the strength lies in who you are rather than in what they expect you to be.”
The Bone Witch by Run Chupeco
The Story:
Rin Chupeco’s book The Bone Witch is the first book of this series and kicks us off with a young girl who just raised her newly deceased brother from the grave. Tea’s story is about her being young Black Asha, or a necromancer, in a kingdom where this type of magic is both feared and hated. Yet, people still highly respected for the order and peace they can bring against the monsters. While in training, she has to face a number of challenges not only from her teachers and peers, but from the daeva and her soon-to-be job as a Bone Witch. With only a few Ashas like her still alive, Tea has to learn fast to help keep the monsters asleep and get the dead to wake up.
Key Elements:
Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal, Necromancy, Witches, Magic, Narration, Daeva
Others in the Series:
Book 2: The Heart Forger
Book 3: The Shadowglass
Why This Rating?
I thought that the set up of the book was a brilliant idea. With the book being told as a story to another person it really helped move everything through some potentially slow moments. This narration style gave the author a great outlet to give the readers some backstory while still giving very brief glimpses into the present. Very smart!
I was a bit disappointed that there was not more from Tea’s brother Fox. We get the basic start up for the Tea which was wonderfully done. And the growth of her as an Asha was what I expected since it is her story. I would have liked a bit more from her brother seeing that he is supposed to be a something important thing to Tea. He seemed more of a convenience factor in the book with only a few moments of importance. Fox as a character has a lot of potential. I hope we can see more of his development in the next book.
There were time I felt that the world was far smaller than what was really out there in this story. Because the trip from Tea’s home to the Asha’s home seemed so quick and then we stayed in the Willows for a majority of the time, I got a tad bored with some of the same places we kept visiting. Granted, the break up of the present day moments really helped to prevent this most of the time. So that as a utility piece in the writing was well-done. I also understand the importance of building a story in the first book, so this is really only a minor complaint. I am looking forward to more travels in the next one.
This book does have a great hook at the very end though! It makes you definitely want to go find the second book and start reading just to see what happened that made everyone windup where they are now. Thankfully it isn’t a direct cut off and isn’t a super mean cliff-hanger, but it is tastefully done.
Personally, I thought that this was an overall good book and I look forward to finishing out this series. I hope that the second book allows for a bit more expansion across the world and that it will answer the questions I have from the first book.
Time to get lost in the next story!
