*Minor spoilers*
Tea can raise the dead, but resurrection comes at a price.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 an 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.
Ever since I finished The Never Tilting World, I was curious about the other books the author had written. I knew there was a ton of hype around The Bone Witch, so a copy had been sitting on my shelves for awhile. Then, drama popped up around the author, so my friend and I decided it was finally time to read it and we could buddy read too! I think I might’ve finished before she even started, but let’s not get into that. The point is, this book sounded like something dark and full of magic and I was eager to read it!
I think this book shows Chupeco’s true talent as an author. I didn’t fall head over heels in love with it, but it still managed to get under my skin. I can’t help but appreciate what she did with this story and these characters. It’s a sticky book; it’s one that stays with you.
I want to start off by saying how absolutely beautiful this book is. The imagery, just wow, I felt breathless during multiple scenes because the details were just so stark and so clear and everything came through so well. Chupeco knows how to use words and how to string them together to squeeze every once of affect she can out of them. I can’t sing her enough praise in her writing ability.
Unfortunately, for me, this book moved very, very slowly. I felt like there was so much worldbuilding and so much set up. I get why it was done, this book takes place over years, but it just dragged on for me.
When I started it, I didn’t realize how young the main character was going to be. Tea starts off as 13 and the book follows her through her teenage years. I’m honestly not used to reading about characters this young and it threw me for a loop longer than I would care to admit. But, I do think there’s a need for books with younger teens; it just took me by surprise and took me time to adjust my expectations.
Though, I did like watching Tea as she grew. There is something to be said to see where a character comes from, to know all the small details that make up their character. It just moved at a bit too slow a pace for me.
I’m also kind of wrestling with whether I liked the development and growth the characters went through, or if I would have liked to see more. On one hand, it does seem like how they changed is very real to true life, subtle and sometimes not very noticeable. But, I also feel like I might’ve liked to see something clear or something bigger at the end, just because there was so much time to devoted to time passing.
I also think I would have liked to see more of the other character’s development as time passed. There are a good number of characters that I found interesting! I liked Fox, Kance, and Kalen. Plus, all of Tea’s mentors and sisters were amazing. But, I think I would have liked to see how some of those characters had changed of the years as well.
I really think the pace of this book just wasn’t for me. It’s slow and I know that works for some people! I know people are going to think how this book progressed and how things slowly built and small details were placed here and there were brilliantly done. For me, it just didn’t click. I got frustrated because I wanted more things to happen and I wanted the plot to move forward. I got frustrated because I felt like I kept waiting for things to happen. Still, that’s just me though!
Despite not completely falling in love with this book, I can’t help but admire it. I even kind of want to try out the second book. The story is woven brilliantly and I feel like this is a trilogy that holds something really, really amazing. I urge you to check out this book, because it might be one you fall utterly in love with! It has dark imagery, a slow and steady pace, elemental magic, corpses raised from the dead, and brilliant writing.
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