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A review by mcaliz
The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco
4.0
Trigger warnings: prejudice, petty instances of girl on girl hate, self inflicted bloodletting, gore
Rep: sibling love, feminism, fat/plus size rep, animal companionship
Thoughts
Neutral thoughts:
1. A lot of the I formation given has a LOT of foreshadowing, so while it fun to piece it all together, some things were just VERY obvious and predictable. (but there were somethings that were not predictable AT ALL, and I loved those moments)
2. I have questions about Fox and what it means to be a Familiar. We get to learn more about the connection between a Dark asha/Bone Witch and her familiar, but I felt like there was more to the connection that we saw? And I think it obviously had to do with the fact that Tea didn't know it all herself (but I felt like Lady Mykaela could have told her when we first met her and she was explaining to Tea what Fox was to her after she raised him from the dead) But hopefully we learn more about familiars in the next 2 book?
3. There's a dual timeline in this book, in which Tea is explaining the events that led to her present situation and what she is currently doing. So while these chapters did help overall with the flow of information and world building, I wished that it didn’t change time line every other chapter? I think the flow would be better if the present time line was integrated pass frequently. But I do understand what Chupeco was doing with these chapters. I do wonder how it is going to work in the next 2 books cause I have skimmed the other 2 books and they continue on with this format. But I am interested in the storyline nonetheless!
4. There were some really sexist gender roles. Where only women with silver heartglasses can do “asha things” while men with silver heartglasses have to become soldiers known as Deathseekers. But these ideas are pushed by Tea & others in the book, which was nice to see
Pros:
1. I like the animal/nature names. Names hold a lot of meaning in this world, especially if you're an Asha & it was cool to learn about
2. The magic system was really cool! And I really liked the whole concept about the heart glasses that people wore.
3. There we’re some really great one liners about prejudice, anger, self worth & respect, feminism, gender roles, tradition
4. The ENDING HAD ME ROLLING. There was a confrontation and information at the end that had me SO SHOOK that I can't wait for book 2!!!
Gripes:
1. The pacing is really fast in the beginning, and honestly throughout the whole book. It’s bumpy, like the author/narrator is rushing to get to certain points & share certain information, which was cool to learn about but it just felt rushed
2. Like I mentioned before, this was kind of predictable. Like when something would go wrong, I knew everything was gonna be fine for Tea. If she was gonna get in “trouble” or be punished I knew it was gonna be okay, so it took away, for me, the suspense or the worry that Tea was feeling at any certain points
The romance:
OKAY. So I have seen in other reviews that there's a "love triangle" or a potential love triangle, but I can assure you that it’s not one!! And honestly , there ain't even a romance in here (we just know from foreshadowing that it's going to be more prominent in the following books). It’s more like Tea having feelings of infatuation with one fo the boys because of WHO he is, rather than him as an individual (like you can like the "golden boy" because he actually is nice, thoughtful, yada yada, but only having feelings for him like the shallow end of a pool); and as the story goes on we see that the other boy in the one who is actually endgame. And THIS relationship borders on “hate to love” but the hate is felt by one of the people while the other one just knows that other doesn’t like them because of who they are, not because they actually did something to other person. It was interesting to say the least & can't wait to see it play out in the next 2 books
Rep: sibling love, feminism, fat/plus size rep, animal companionship
Thoughts
Neutral thoughts:
1. A lot of the I formation given has a LOT of foreshadowing, so while it fun to piece it all together, some things were just VERY obvious and predictable. (but there were somethings that were not predictable AT ALL, and I loved those moments)
2. I have questions about Fox and what it means to be a Familiar. We get to learn more about the connection between a Dark asha/Bone Witch and her familiar, but I felt like there was more to the connection that we saw? And I think it obviously had to do with the fact that Tea didn't know it all herself (but I felt like Lady Mykaela could have told her when we first met her and she was explaining to Tea what Fox was to her after she raised him from the dead) But hopefully we learn more about familiars in the next 2 book?
3. There's a dual timeline in this book, in which Tea is explaining the events that led to her present situation and what she is currently doing. So while these chapters did help overall with the flow of information and world building, I wished that it didn’t change time line every other chapter? I think the flow would be better if the present time line was integrated pass frequently. But I do understand what Chupeco was doing with these chapters. I do wonder how it is going to work in the next 2 books cause I have skimmed the other 2 books and they continue on with this format. But I am interested in the storyline nonetheless!
4. There were some really sexist gender roles. Where only women with silver heartglasses can do “asha things” while men with silver heartglasses have to become soldiers known as Deathseekers. But these ideas are pushed by Tea & others in the book, which was nice to see
Pros:
1. I like the animal/nature names. Names hold a lot of meaning in this world, especially if you're an Asha & it was cool to learn about
2. The magic system was really cool! And I really liked the whole concept about the heart glasses that people wore.
3. There we’re some really great one liners about prejudice, anger, self worth & respect, feminism, gender roles, tradition
4. The ENDING HAD ME ROLLING. There was a confrontation and information at the end that had me SO SHOOK that I can't wait for book 2!!!
Gripes:
1. The pacing is really fast in the beginning, and honestly throughout the whole book. It’s bumpy, like the author/narrator is rushing to get to certain points & share certain information, which was cool to learn about but it just felt rushed
2. Like I mentioned before, this was kind of predictable. Like when something would go wrong, I knew everything was gonna be fine for Tea. If she was gonna get in “trouble” or be punished I knew it was gonna be okay, so it took away, for me, the suspense or the worry that Tea was feeling at any certain points
The romance:
OKAY. So I have seen in other reviews that there's a "love triangle" or a potential love triangle, but I can assure you that it’s not one!! And honestly , there ain't even a romance in here (we just know from foreshadowing that it's going to be more prominent in the following books). It’s more like Tea having feelings of infatuation with one fo the boys because of WHO he is, rather than him as an individual (like you can like the "golden boy" because he actually is nice, thoughtful, yada yada, but only having feelings for him like the shallow end of a pool); and as the story goes on we see that the other boy in the one who is actually endgame. And THIS relationship borders on “hate to love” but the hate is felt by one of the people while the other one just knows that other doesn’t like them because of who they are, not because they actually did something to other person. It was interesting to say the least & can't wait to see it play out in the next 2 books