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sarah984's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This is a fantasy novel about a girl with dark magical abilities being inducted into (and then cast out of) order of geisha-like entertainers and magic users. Parts of the story are set in the present and the other parts are Tea describing her history to a disgraced bard.
The story is slow but rich and detailed, and I thought the world was fascinating, especially the stuff about heartsglass. The main character Tea isn't necessarily likable but she is sympathetic and interesting. However most of the other characters are pretty flat - including, unfortunately, the love interest, which makes some parts of the plot feel a little silly - and some of them are pretty broad ethnic stereotypes (the "Russian" guy is mostly just kind of goofy but the way the characters implied to be Muslim are handled is genuinely offensive in places).
The story is slow but rich and detailed, and I thought the world was fascinating, especially the stuff about heartsglass. The main character Tea isn't necessarily likable but she is sympathetic and interesting. However most of the other characters are pretty flat - including, unfortunately, the love interest, which makes some parts of the plot feel a little silly - and some of them are pretty broad ethnic stereotypes (the "Russian" guy is mostly just kind of goofy but the way the characters implied to be Muslim are handled is genuinely offensive in places).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Islamophobia, Medical content, Mental illness, Self harm, Stalking, Terminal illness, and Violence
kurumipanda's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, War, and Sexism
Minor: Animal death and Transphobia
lyonsdenprojects's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-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
4.0
This is like a richer, more magical telling of Memoirs of a Geisha, where the protagonist has far more control of herself and her destiny. I love Rin's writing from The Girl in the Well and this book was as wonderful as I expected. It started slow and but once the world was built enough, it grabbed me with lovable characters and a compelling tale. Highly recommended.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Death, and Grief
booksandprosecco's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
thenovelmaura's review against another edition
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
5.0
Wow, I loved this book! I read it in June and three months later, I already own the second book in the trilogy and plan to read it soon. It's a bit light on action compared to the fantasy I usually read, but I think the second book will pick up quickly. The narrative choice to have an older version of Tea telling her story worked really well here, and the mystery of how she ended up on this remote beach making evil villain speeches kept me reading. Tea and her brother Fox have the sweetest relationship and I can't wait to see how it evolves as Tea gets older.
I was fascinated by the Eight Kingdoms and I could tell Chupeco put a ton of thought into these lands, the people, and the magic system. This book was a bit contained to just a few cities and villages, but I'm expecting Tea to travel a lot more moving forward. I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang or The Young Elites by Marie Lu; these books all have the fascinating theme of following the gradual corruption of the main character. And be prepared for really lush descriptions of clothing and other parts of the setting because there's a lot of that as well. I have friends who enjoyed this entire series so I'm really excited to continue it!
I was fascinated by the Eight Kingdoms and I could tell Chupeco put a ton of thought into these lands, the people, and the magic system. This book was a bit contained to just a few cities and villages, but I'm expecting Tea to travel a lot more moving forward. I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang or The Young Elites by Marie Lu; these books all have the fascinating theme of following the gradual corruption of the main character. And be prepared for really lush descriptions of clothing and other parts of the setting because there's a lot of that as well. I have friends who enjoyed this entire series so I'm really excited to continue it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Blood
Moderate: Sexism
Minor: Transphobia
rochelle_reads's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
꧁꧁Book Review꧂꧂
The story follows Tea, a bone witch who has the ability to resurrect the dead and defeat demons. After she raised her brother from the dead, which was right at the beginning, nothing happened. Literally nothing and I kept waiting for something exciting but it was just boring and lacking any sort of plot or character development.
I listened to this as an audiobook and I really struggled with this one, I think part of it was the narrator’s different voices for characters that just made me cringe when I wasn’t laughing (it wasn’t meant to be funny…).
I liked how the bard’s narrative showed him listening to Tea telling him about her exploits as a trainee bone witch (or lack thereof) in the present and thought this was a really interesting way to tell the story. I looked forward to his change in narrative but it was few and far between.
Overall, this lacked any excitement or just anything for me and the only reason I finished it was because it was an audiobook!
Rating: 🧙♀️🧙♀️
The story follows Tea, a bone witch who has the ability to resurrect the dead and defeat demons. After she raised her brother from the dead, which was right at the beginning, nothing happened. Literally nothing and I kept waiting for something exciting but it was just boring and lacking any sort of plot or character development.
I listened to this as an audiobook and I really struggled with this one, I think part of it was the narrator’s different voices for characters that just made me cringe when I wasn’t laughing (it wasn’t meant to be funny…).
I liked how the bard’s narrative showed him listening to Tea telling him about her exploits as a trainee bone witch (or lack thereof) in the present and thought this was a really interesting way to tell the story. I looked forward to his change in narrative but it was few and far between.
Overall, this lacked any excitement or just anything for me and the only reason I finished it was because it was an audiobook!
Rating: 🧙♀️🧙♀️
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
measishouldbebooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
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
4.0
Memoirs of a Geisha, but with Rune Magic and Necromancy. Rin Chupeco has created a beautiful and intricate world with an interesting magic system. Tea was a great character, and this story explores both who she is now and how she came to be that person. I’m excited to delve more into this world and learn more about how Tea came to be the Exiled Dark Asha.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Death
madarauchiha's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? No
0.75
❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜 my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 💜 💙 💚 💛 🧡 ❤️
This isn't a review, it's more like my notes via moonreader pro [yes i'm have money :)] collated into a single document. Enjoy future me, and I guess other people.
Monologues! So many goddamn monologues! And infodumping! Most of the world building is in monologues or infodumping.
▪ The brown of my skin was paler now due to my frequent bloodletting, "
Hmmmm. Really. So the MC is brown, but I'm going to bet it's a light brown. A brown that can pass as a tan white person. Just based on how horny the author is for racial features that aren't, like, not white.
It also irritates me how much of the auxiliary characters are all blue eyed. Why is the author so self hating of brown eyes? Sad.
Don't take this too seriously but sometimes this book feels like a fucking race traitor. Like green eyes blue eyes pale skin red hair golden hair!!! Every hair and eye color but brown. And she also described someone, a single person, as having angular eyes. Which feels derogatory in a fantasy genre way towards asian ppl and idk if I'm over sensitive or what.
It feels just a tiny bit infodump-y but I wont complain. The magic system, so far, is pretty interesting. The constant flashbacks are irritating. Like I'm already hooked, you know? No need to tease me with what's going to happen in the following chapter.
Actually, what's irritating about the flashbacks is that they could've served a better purpose for the narrative. Emphasize the difference between mc and the mc back then. Indicate how the world itself has changed since mc had come into her full power. Anything except "Hey you know that thing you did? True or false? Yeah lemme tell you about it in the next chapter."
"Michaelmas"
Why is there christianity in this book...? Is this not fantasy? Wh-?
If the girl grew up poor why does she compare things to expensive minerals? Eg the princes eyes with emeralds. The girl is poor, shed be thinking of greenery or smt imo. Like, it'd feel more in character, you know?
Theres weird recurrent sexual harassment of the mc and I dont like it. Also things just kinda happen around her. How boring.
This book hits a lot of cliches and I dont think it does it well enough to be interesting. Like 14 chapters in and we've gotten to the harry potter magic school section of the adventure. It's like the author is throwing everything into the pot and hoping something sticks for the variety of readers who will pick up this book. Also I hate the feminine schooling. God I thought we left the sexist fantasy tropes back in the eighties.
I'm right about hating how much this is just fucking sexist fantasy because hello they're not even teaching thisdumb bitch anything about dark bone magic. I feel like I'm wasting my time reading this.
Ok so this girl who feels like she's 14 yo gets taken away to be a student. Except not really, she'san indentured slave made to serve the magical school as a servant. She's not taught anything until chapters later when, by sheer luck, she gets in trouble and someone forces her to reveal her super mary sue levels of power. At which point the magic school owners are liek 'oh fuck. I guess it's worthwhile to teach this dumb bitch some magic'. Because literally her mentor, the one who whisked her away at the start of the book, was away doing magical missions.
But even then that feels like my time is being wasted because it's not really magical learning. No, the MC is taught feminine trades. Dancing. Playing musical instrument. How to be a party host.
So this is basically magical geishas meets harry potter. Minus voldemort and magic fascists.
THEN. Then she doesn't even learn much about this bone magic until she gets in trouble AGAIN and the magical school owners are liek 'oh fuck. I guess it's worthwhile to teach this dumb bitch some magic, but for reals this time'.
Oh also there's a scene that's repeated twice in the last few chapters. It's the one where the MC remembers she was bullied in a crowd by a strange boy because he thinks her bone witch people killed his mother. It felt almost word for word, or hit the same beats as the first time it was brought up. And it was only a few chapters apart! Please, I remember, I don't need this beat into my head. I wonder if this was missed in editing or what.
I think there's bad guys? Like the main bad guyis a fellow student who wants to overthrow the government. I think. But who cares about that. That's not really a big part of the plot, most of it's about growing up in magic school and also the love triangle. The love triangle which, so far, is only hinted at.
There's a love triangle, btw. I think. It's between a prince and a nobleman. Or another prince, I forget. Like Idk how a prince who is supposed to be helping run the kingdom and learn how to be kings / nobility has the time to fuck around with a junior geisha [maiko? what's the term?] but alright sure. It's ya, it's fantasy, I'll live with it. Though I think it's not purely romantic love, as she has to pick between her romantic interest and her brother. But for reasons which aren't unveiled yet. I assume it'll be in book two.
Which I will be skipping. The plot in this book feels like dragging a very heavy stone across a field for several hours, to load it into a catapault, firing it into a wall that's only 5 feet away. If this book took a route that was actually scenic and interesting, I'd forgive it. But it doesn't. The writing is serviceable and doesn't make me want to burn the book after reading. So there's that.
I'm going to give reading the third [and final?] book just to get some closure. Judging by the cover blurb, this dumb girl hasn't accomplished jack shit since the first book.
content warnings:
minor xenophobia, misogyny, infidelity, q slur in historical context, wars, death,
major sexual assault? forcible disrobing, transmisogyny, xenophobia, misogyny, honor killing, body horror, death,
This isn't a review, it's more like my notes via moonreader pro [yes i'm have money :)] collated into a single document. Enjoy future me, and I guess other people.
Monologues! So many goddamn monologues! And infodumping! Most of the world building is in monologues or infodumping.
▪ The brown of my skin was paler now due to my frequent bloodletting, "
Hmmmm. Really. So the MC is brown, but I'm going to bet it's a light brown. A brown that can pass as a tan white person. Just based on how horny the author is for racial features that aren't, like, not white.
It also irritates me how much of the auxiliary characters are all blue eyed. Why is the author so self hating of brown eyes? Sad.
Don't take this too seriously but sometimes this book feels like a fucking race traitor. Like green eyes blue eyes pale skin red hair golden hair!!! Every hair and eye color but brown. And she also described someone, a single person, as having angular eyes. Which feels derogatory in a fantasy genre way towards asian ppl and idk if I'm over sensitive or what.
It feels just a tiny bit infodump-y but I wont complain. The magic system, so far, is pretty interesting. The constant flashbacks are irritating. Like I'm already hooked, you know? No need to tease me with what's going to happen in the following chapter.
Actually, what's irritating about the flashbacks is that they could've served a better purpose for the narrative. Emphasize the difference between mc and the mc back then. Indicate how the world itself has changed since mc had come into her full power. Anything except "Hey you know that thing you did? True or false? Yeah lemme tell you about it in the next chapter."
"Michaelmas"
Why is there christianity in this book...? Is this not fantasy? Wh-?
If the girl grew up poor why does she compare things to expensive minerals? Eg the princes eyes with emeralds. The girl is poor, shed be thinking of greenery or smt imo. Like, it'd feel more in character, you know?
Theres weird recurrent sexual harassment of the mc and I dont like it. Also things just kinda happen around her. How boring.
This book hits a lot of cliches and I dont think it does it well enough to be interesting. Like 14 chapters in and we've gotten to the
I'm right about hating how much this is just fucking sexist fantasy because hello they're not even teaching this
Ok so this girl who feels like she's 14 yo gets taken away to be a student. Except not really, she's
But even then that feels like my time is being wasted because it's not really magical learning. No, the MC is taught feminine trades. Dancing. Playing musical instrument. How to be a party host.
So this is basically magical geishas meets harry potter. Minus voldemort and magic fascists.
THEN. Then she doesn't even learn much about this bone magic until she gets in trouble AGAIN and the magical school owners are liek 'oh fuck. I guess it's worthwhile to teach this dumb bitch some magic, but for reals this time'.
Oh also there's a scene that's repeated twice in the last few chapters. It's the one where the MC
I think there's bad guys? Like the main bad guy
There's a love
Which I will be skipping. The plot in this book feels like dragging a very heavy stone across a field for several hours, to load it into a catapault, firing it into a wall that's only 5 feet away. If this book took a route that was actually scenic and interesting, I'd forgive it. But it doesn't. The writing is serviceable and doesn't make me want to burn the book after reading. So there's that.
I'm going to give reading the third [and final?] book just to get some closure. Judging by the cover blurb, this dumb girl hasn't accomplished jack shit since the first book.
content warnings:
minor xenophobia, misogyny, infidelity, q slur in historical context, wars, death,
major sexual assault? forcible disrobing, transmisogyny, xenophobia, misogyny, honor killing, body horror, death,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Misogyny, Body horror, and Death
Minor: Xenophobia, Misogyny, Infidelity, and Death
jamielikestoread's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-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? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
rorikae's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
'The Bone Witch' by Rin Chupeco is an interesting fantasy with an intriguing magic system.
Tea lives in a world of witches but her power is different than her family's. When her brother is killed, she resurrects him and learns that she is a bone witch. But resurrections are not looked on kindly by her community. To learn more about her powers, she ventures with her brother Fox to a different land where she can train under a more experienced bone witch. But as she trains and learns more about this new community and her powers, she becomes entangled in the politics of the city.
My favorite thing about this story is the magic system. From what I have read, it is based on various pieces of folklore and history and they come together to form this really interesting world and magic system. One of the pieces I found the most interesting is the use of Hearts Glass, particularly how people can read the color of the glass to diagnose illnesses and to tell more about the individual.
The other piece that I really liked was the structure of the story. It is told in two viewpoints, mainly from Tea's own view but also from the point of view of a bard who is encountering a future version of Tea. This creates intrigue as we get the past and current versions of Tea simultaneously and it made me interested in how she became the person in the later story.
One of my stumbling points for this story was the audiobook. It wasn't bad but I did find that it didn't capture my attention. I would recommend reading a physical copy of the book as I found it easy to miss pieces in the audiobook that would be far harder to do if I was reading a physical version of the story. There was also a slight love story in the book that felt unnecessary though I believe it will be much more important for later installments. Even though I didn't love this book, I am interested to read more of Chupeco's works in the future.
Tea lives in a world of witches but her power is different than her family's. When her brother is killed, she resurrects him and learns that she is a bone witch. But resurrections are not looked on kindly by her community. To learn more about her powers, she ventures with her brother Fox to a different land where she can train under a more experienced bone witch. But as she trains and learns more about this new community and her powers, she becomes entangled in the politics of the city.
My favorite thing about this story is the magic system. From what I have read, it is based on various pieces of folklore and history and they come together to form this really interesting world and magic system. One of the pieces I found the most interesting is the use of Hearts Glass, particularly how people can read the color of the glass to diagnose illnesses and to tell more about the individual.
The other piece that I really liked was the structure of the story. It is told in two viewpoints, mainly from Tea's own view but also from the point of view of a bard who is encountering a future version of Tea. This creates intrigue as we get the past and current versions of Tea simultaneously and it made me interested in how she became the person in the later story.
One of my stumbling points for this story was the audiobook. It wasn't bad but I did find that it didn't capture my attention. I would recommend reading a physical copy of the book as I found it easy to miss pieces in the audiobook that would be far harder to do if I was reading a physical version of the story. There was also a slight love story in the book that felt unnecessary though I believe it will be much more important for later installments. Even though I didn't love this book, I am interested to read more of Chupeco's works in the future.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Violence