Reviews

The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco

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krista_billings's review

5.0

It's not often that I read a book where I'm not at least somewhat aware of how it will end. Rin Chupeco is a master storyteller.

My review is below, but if you prefer it in BookTube form, here's the link to my review there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ProLJYRHHbI&t=1s

The Heart Forger is the twisty, turny sequel to The Bone Witch. If you haven’t read it, I suggest starting... with that? Y'know, to avoid MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST BOOK!!! HERE THERE BE DRAGONS, if, you know, dragons were spoilers I WILL NOT BE BLAMED FOR SPOILING SOMETHING SO DELIGHTFUL YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

The Bone Witch, and its sequel The Heart Forger, by Rin Chupeco, immerse you in the story of Tea, a young girl who raises her brother from the dead and is swept into a world of beauty and magic. The story is told in two directions, the Bard’s perspective as Tea prepares for war, and Tea’s perspective as she tells the Bard her story. The Heart Forger sees Tea begin her war, and starts to unravel why she’s doing what she’s doing, and who and what she is truly fighting.

Rin Chupeco does a really wonderful job of building tension. You, the reader, are allowed and encouraged to piece together the story, try to guess who or what they’re alluding to, and you almost never get it right. The Bard, our narrator, who Tea brought into the picture to have an unbiased record of events, is intentionally kept in the dark. Even with the influx of information, you can never know if that story is what pertains to this piece of the puzzle.

This book also introduces the Blight, an aspect of magic that nobody really understands. Basically: People turning into literal monsters. Like, wings sprouting out of their backs, horns and fangs, loss of, you know, personhood. That kind of thing. It’s a mark that someone has stepped over to the Dark Side, if you will, and to some degree allied themselves with the Faceless, an organization of magic users who seek power and control at any cost. There’s an interesting political difference between Asha and the Faceless as well, which is the censorship of quote-unquote “Dangerous Magic”. The Asha Council has been hiding knowledge, and that makes Tea look at them… differently. Agents of the Faceless have been trying to seduce her to their side with the lure of Secret Knowledge, knowledge that must have been known at some point in order to be suppressed in the Asha ranks. Kinda makes you go, hmmm.

And now, I’ve got to talk about The Romance. So at the end of the first book, Tea raised her beloved from the dead in the later timeline (the Bard’s perspective, not Tea’s stories) and it’s Lord Kalen, which is not what you expect from Tea’s stories. I thought it would be Prince Kance, you thought it would be prince Kance, everybody thought it would be Prince Kance, but it wasn’t. It was Lord Kalen. This book really grounds you in why. Rin Chupeco really devotes time and attention to the development of the romance between Kalen and Tea, without 1) taking focus away from the CRAZY SHITSTORM that follows in their wake, and 2) compromising her characters’, you know, characters. Everybody grows up in this book, and gets about halfway to where they are in the Bard’s perspective, but nobody is relinquishing anything they held dear in the last book. Something that really bugs me in a lot of books is that in order to establish a romance, one or both characters in the pair (it’s always a pair, don’t get me started on love triangles or polyamory) give up or change a defining trait, or, worse, realize that that trait that made them so abhorrent to the other character was never really a part of their personality at all. It just… disappears. And that’s frustrating because people don’t do that. People can decide that different things are important to them, but the fundamentals of personhood don’t just disappear when there’s a possibility of a romantic relationship on the horizon. No! That’s ridiculous. And yet. Anyway. That doesn’t happen in this book. Both of them are terrible at saying what’s actually going on with them: Kalen is self-sacrificing to a fault and Tea has really really poor emotional self-awareness. And they’ve been falling for each other basically since they met, and they’re young and dumb and still figuring it out. Except then Kalen goes and says stuff like “tell me how to worship you” and I just fall apart. COMMUNICATION! You’re getting there, guys! Keep up the good work!

Rin Chupeco has also included some really interesting romantic subplots for side characters that just bring me so much joy. There’s unrequited crushes that go unnoticed because some people are OBLIVIOUS and unrequited love that turns into a relationship because some people REALLY ENJOY EMBARRASING OTHER PEOPLE AND IT JUST KIND OF WORKS OUT OKAY and there’s forbidden love and jealousy and platonic love and just SO MUCH LOVE like I don’t understand how Rin Chupeco fit so much love into a book about necromancers. It’s honestly really impressive.

What can I say? Some books have interesting plots. Some books have interesting worlds. Some books have awesome, well-developed characters. This series has all three and MORE BESIDES.

My main problem with this book is the printing errors. Almost all of this book flows beautifully, and then there are specific paragraphs that seem like they are misprints. The first time I noticed it, there’s a paragraph that is punctuated so only one person is speaking, but even if that person was doing a very out-of-character impression, they wouldn’t say some of the things in that paragraph. I honestly think that one was two or even three people and somehow ended up getting muddled in editing. A few moments where the wrong word is used, typos, unexplained expletives like “bumbass” – no I did not pronounce that wrong. It needed a third pass from the copy editor, especially in the second half. Hopefully they’ll fix the typesetting in the second printing!

mapmcclure's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

read2escape's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

kultainenkettu's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

sgolanoski's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

allyreadsromance's review against another edition

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5.0

This is an exciting second installment! I believe The Heart Forger is better than the first book. It has more action, character development, romance, and magic!! It has left me anxiously waiting for third book!!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing this ARC for an honest review.

spookyyzoeyy's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I followed this a little closer, and the world is so expensive. Definitely a focus more towards politics in this book and kind of exploring? I'm interested to see how things conclude in the next book.