Book 6: The Bone Witch Review

Well guys, I dropped the ball and forgot to give you a heads up on what I was reading. Sorry about that.  So for my 6th book I chose Bone Witch. Honestly, I picked it because the cover looked cool and the quotes of “I never intended to raise my brother from the his grave” just really caught my attention. After the last book I read, I really needed a win. This book did not disappoint, but I made sure to fairly rate this book. It is easy to think a book is a magical unicorn if the last book you read sucked. So after taking time I have decided that this book did deserve a solid rating.

Star Rating: 4 out of 5

The main character of this story is Tea a 12 year old girl who finds out that she is very special. In her world magic, monsters, and witches are a very real thing and she suddenly finds out that she is a very different type of witch. By suddenly, I mean that during her brothers funeral she accidently raises him from the dead. This one event changes her life forever and she is taken from her family to train to become a Dark Asha.

The story jumps between the present and the past seamlessly through Tea’s interactions with the Bard. He pleads for her to tell him her story and she agrees. This interaction allows you to see how she was trained as well as seeing her working her dark magic in present time (when she is 17). I am trying my best not to give away any spoilers because the interactions in present time are what made me really want to read the sequel.

Rin Chupeco does a fantastic job creating this magical world with strong Asian influences. You have the magical Asha’s who are very reminiscent of Geisha’s. Even the Hua’s that the Asha brings to mind a kimono. She even goes so far as to fully describe one of the performances that took place during a very important part of the story. I will be honest, I thought this part was super boring but I know the story being told in the performance will matter later in the series.

Pros:

• The world is very well constructed. There is history and the Women of this world are pretty bad ass. Not that the men are not, we just don’t get much of there part of the world yet.
• Tea never shies away
• Subtle LGBT+ representation in the book! There were two characters, Rahim and Likh that I believe were definitely part of that community. Rahim the well respected Hua maker said “We are all girls here” when Tea felt shy getting fitted for her Hua. You also had Likh who wanted nothing more than to be an Asha, a role filled traditionally by women. He wanted this so bad that he risked imprisonment just so that he could preform dressed as an Asha in hopes of being accepted into their ranks…he was not but there is still hope for him.
• Tea was not afraid of her powers. This is a major plus for me. You see books where the characters are afraid of how powerful they are, but not Tea. She understands that there is more to her power than is being taught and she is willing to delve into this power. Not for her own evil purposes,  but to protect future Asha from sacrificing themselves. She knows that there has to be another way and she is determined to find it.
• The ending!!!! Holy Cow! It left me pumped for the next book! Golly gee, it was great.

Cons:

• The romantic element, if you can call it that. The parts of the story where Tea interacts with Prince Kance were a little painful for me. I know the book is YA but it could have been done better.
• The performance in the middle of the book was incredibly drawn out and boring. As I said before, I know that it will be important later on, but very boring.
• There were a few parts that dragged on a little bit.

Overall:

Overall, I really enjoyed the book.  I took time thinking about this review because I was about to give it 5 star but realized that the last book I read was influencing this score. This book was great in my opinion but it did have some flaws. I don’t want to just throw away 5 star ratings unless I am blown away by the book. With that said, this book was honestly good. I loved the world it is set in, and I love the way magic is used. It left me wanting to read the next book in the series so that is a very good thing! I really recommend this book!

~Book 6 completed! Climbing La Plata Peak 2 more books to go~