I wanted to like you. I really did. But I just couldn't bring myself to do so. I requested this because the plot sounded up my alley. I was excited to sit down with this and Chupeco does have a way with words and I liked the back and forth narrative that lets you see some hint of the fate of the main character but those snippets felt "heavier" in comparison to the rest of the book. The world building maybe suffered because of the tone changes that happened along with the heavy use of exposition for Tea's POV throughout.

The characters and world building were interesting and I do think this universe should get the chance to be improved upon (it seems as if this novel was the one to set up future installments) because Chupeco does craft an interesting story but for me this first installment was a slow set up, that seemed to focus more on Tea's training, that didn't seem to focus on much else (there are hints about a love triangle and bigger enemies that may come later).

I'd give this a try if you're looking for a fantasy book with an interesting concept and a really slow burn but this just didn't grab me like I wanted it too.

From the publisher: When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from other witches. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older 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, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles…and make a powerful choice.

The Bone Witch is beautifully written, with lovely passages and good world building. I was able to clearly visualize the world and its inhabitants. The narrative alternates between two points in time. In the first, Tea (pronounced Tey-uh), surrounded by teachers, fellow students, and her asha family, is learning what she needs to know to be a powerful and effective wielder of magic. In the second, she is alone and in a dark place, telling her story to an interested bard and preparing for action. The novel opens strong and the cover is gorgeous.

However, the pace of The Bone Witch is glacial. Glaaacial. And the slow pace is not spent developing character. Despite the slow pace, I never felt I got to know Tea; her dead brother Fox was the most interesting part of the book. We also don't see any action to explain how Tea went from the first place, surrounded by friends and family, to that place of solitude until late in the book. We do see her undergo training in dance, voice, martial arts, how to wear her special asha clothing and jewelry, etc. Oh, and a little bit about raising the dead.

The narrative is relentlessly joyless, yet I was compelled to keep reading. Big questions are left unanswered, and I am intrigued enough that I will plan to read the sequel.

Although much in this book feels original, sometimes the author does wander into cliché territory (from p. 202 of the advance reader copy: "Don't worry your pretty head over it, my dear," the old man said kindly”).

I give The Bone Witch points for a transgender character, a boy who knows he won't survive as a soldier and dreams of being the first male asha instead.

This book will find its reader, but many others will stop reading long before the end. You might be that reader however, so watch for the book at the Galesburg Public Library in March if you are intrigued.

I read an advance reader copy of The Bone Witch.

This was a wonderful YA title. The writing was beautiful and the character of Tea was well written. However, the last half of the book dragged a bit and the ending was disappointingly abrupt and too cliff-hangery. That being said--I look forward to the next installment of the series!

I thought this book was wonderful! I am so intrigued by the world-building and eager to learn more about the mythology of this universe. Also that cliffhanger! I need to know how she ended up with him and how he was killed.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley. I am not a fan of this book. While I appreciate the opportunity to read the book prior to release, I couldn't follow what was going on. It was very confusing, and I felt it wasn't going anywhere. I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't.

The following will be posted at The Crown of Books at http://thecrownofbooks.blogspot.com
The date of publication will be February 18th, 2017 around noon EST.


Right off the back, this is going to be on the best reads for this year.

In "The Bone Witch," a young girl named Tea accidentally brings her dead brother back to life. Once discovered, she is taken in by another Asha who can help control her abilities.

I remember when I first came across this, I thought this was going to be an excellent book. However, something in the back of my head wasn't sure. Over time, that little voice that told me it wasn't sure said go for it and I was really happy to get my hands on a copy.

I am an avid reader for stories about magic and witches and all of the sorts. This story wasn't just about ordinary witches, it was about a witch that could raise and control the dead. This was different already and I was eager to read more about it.

The first part I loved was the two very different POV's that were introduced. One was the main character Tea as she goes through her journey of raising her dead brother and learning to be a Bone Witch. The second is of a bard who meets her and recalls his story between the two. Normally, different POV's would continue the same story, but these POV's were at different times as the Bard's telling was after Tea's original beginning. What got me into the story was how the Bard kept coming in. The mood was extremely different than Tea's mood and you can tell that something certainly happened with Tea over time. It made me want to know what happened. It also proved to answer some questions that I had while reading Tea's POV. If it wasn't for the Bard, I would have so many questions. Including the Bard was a genius addition to the story. Very well done.

Another part that I truly liked and believed that was incredibly unique was the heartglass. In this world, the heartglasses usually stay the same color, but can change based on the mood the user is feeling. As for an example, red is happy, pink is romantic, and so on. If your heartglass is silver, it means that you can draw runes and become a fighter or an asha. Purple may have been a limited asha, but not an official asha of a sort.

One last thing that I enjoyed reading about was the character Likh. Likh is a boy who does not want to become fighter with magic. Instead, he would rather break tradition and do something else he wants. The fact that this was made into the story made me happy as it was seen in most stories. Props for adding a unique character.

However, this is just one little thing that I would like to point out. There may be other readers who may struggle with some of the terms like asha, asha-ka, hua and more. I was one of them. Asha was easiest to learn that it was another term for witch. Other terms needed a little bit more reading to figure out what the words meant. This may be a problem with some readers as it may be confusing to some.

This series has so much potential that I will have to continue the series. I plan on buying the first book soon after it released. It's going to be one of the best series yet to come and for this years and the upcoming years. I definitely needs to recommend this book

Let me start by saying that I really wanted to love this book, that I was just so excited to have this book and that already so in love with the cover!

One thing that the author did an excellent job at was worldbuilding. We were introduced to a completely unique world of magic, that is intruiging concept of imagination to my mind. We spent so much time in training school with our main protagonist Tea, that I truly felt like I was being prepared in the practice of Dark Asha magic. The author's voice feels authentic, like a storyteller, since really we have all of the book coming from Tea's perspective in a story of my life format.

I found the alternating timelapses of this plot extremely confusing, and I still haven't figured out some fragments of it. We switch back between two POVs from what happened in the past in Tea's life, to current day plans with Bard. In novels with these two seperate timelines, I feel like there should be a connecting point, right? Even with trying to close-read, I just couldn't find that point of connection that I was looking for in the whole book.

Something that I found extremely unrealistic was the way that Tea has "instalove" with Prince Kalan. I'm sorry, I have ranted about how much I hate instalove, how much I hate instalove, and how much I hate instalove. The thing is, this romance didn't even make sense. These two people see eachother for like 3 experiences total in the book, which I didn't think that "sparks flied" (ex. no kissing, no "i love yous",). Let me be clear, I'm not saying that romance is supposed to be physical, not at all, but I couldn't even identify the friendship here. All of these things later on when Tea was like "I would be willing to die for you" just didn't make sense. The romantic subplot was pushed far to the wayside, which I can understand, but then it's expected to be the main things that propels future Tea forwards. I just don't get it, I can't wrap my head around it...

And then also she forgot all of her other siblings in her old life. Now, I may be mistaken but I believe that she had three or four sisters, mom & dad, and after she changes locations to study and train for the rest of her life, we have barely any mention of her being homesick or her missing her parents. Sure, her brother is with her at all times, but she doesn't even seem to treasure their time (because of constricitions) when he's around. Realistically, not knowing much about her family relationships, you still should be showing some thoughts or emotions about the topic of "home" right?
The thing is, for most of the book nothing significant happened, I can't pinpoint when the climax happened (or if there even was one). At the point of about 50%, I was completely ready to DNF and would have if I hadn't read up on some more positive reviews that I found on Goodreads. But nothing more interesting happened after that, so I could conclude that the pacing was done too slowly and the story was being drawn out too long.

The ending was just so irrational, I don't understand the character, I don't understand why she's doing what she's doing... I couldn't wrap my head around what exactly she's doing fundamentally. I didn't know this, but I just found that there is a second book in the works that is probably going to be prone to explaining more of this, but at this point I'm not interested. What's the first book for then to establish the fundamental premise, right?

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange of my honest review.**

The story is told in the way that Interview with the Vampire is told, through a main character telling someone else. In that sense, nothing actually happens in this book. What we do get is the whole story that has brought us to where the book starts, and hopefully into what the next book will be.

The story, or backstory, is interesting and exciting. I had a difficult time pushing through the second half of the book until the final few chapters. I am unsure what changed there, but I think I was finally getting anxious to know what happened to get us to the main characters current state. I pushed on, and was not disappointed.

If you like books like Red Queen, Throne of Glass, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, you will most likely enjoy this book very much.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in return for my honest review.

The theme of necromancy fascinates me. It got me to read the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. The necromancy concept was never really developed in those books, and Hamilton wandered away from it. This resulted in my wandering away from the series.

I've seen some stories of necromancers as ceremonial magicians who draw a protective magical circle and summon the spirits of the dead into that circle. A cautious attitude is wise when you don't know the spirit you're summoning. Yet what about the beloved dead?

When I read in the description of YA fantasy The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco that twelve year old protagonist Tea refused to accept the death of her brother and ended up resurrecting him, I was intrigued. I also loved the cover. So I requested an ARC from Net Galley, and am now posting this honest review.

Chupeco doesn't spend nearly enough time on necromancy, but she does eventually show us how a deliberate act of necromancy works in her universe. It's a dark approach, but it's based on ancient beliefs about the nature of life and death. I thought it was an excellent concept.

On the other hand, this is what is now called an epic fantasy. This means that it takes place in a universe imagined by the author as opposed to urban fantasy whose setting is in a contemporary urban context, or historical fantasy which deals with a specific time and place in our past. I always hope that an epic fantasy will be less derivative than they usually are, and I'm always disappointed. This is why I read so little epic fantasy.

This book pulls background from a bestselling historical novel, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. I wondered if this was originally supposed to be historical fantasy. I also imagine that Chupeco considered the borrowed background a selling point. She thought that the fans of Memoirs of a Geisha would buy the book. I am not one of those fans. I read Geisha: A Life by Mineko Iwasaki. Iwasaki was the geisha that Arthur Golden interviewed when he was writing his book. She considered the novel a misrepresentation. I urge people who want to know the truth about geisha to read Iwasaki's memoir.

From a feminist viewpoint, the idea that women who have magical gifts that could potentially transform their world for the better should spend a great deal of their time entertaining wealthy and powerful men is repulsive. It nevertheless makes sense in the patriarchal context that Chupeco is portraying. This practice provides these pseudo-geisha with important connections, but it also defuses the fear of strong women by making them seem harmless. Since Tea turns out to be far too much of a powerhouse to be confined to the traditional geisha role, this strategy completely fails to render her unintimidating.

My favorite character in this novel is a boy whose nature and talents cause him to rebel against established gender roles. His name is Likh. He has magical abilities. In this society, he would be required to join a special force of male magical adepts who are deployed militarily. Yet Likh is a gentle soul who is unsuited to the military. He is also a graceful dancer. This would qualify him to be a pseudo-geisha, but males aren't permitted to assume this role. I wanted this book to be about Likh's conflict with his society, but he was a minor character who didn't get enough space in the narrative to suit me.

Another important bone that I would like to pick with The Bone Witch is that I feel that it ended up reinforcing stereotypes about necromancers. It seems to me that magic is a tool. Whether it's good or evil depends on the ethical compass of the practitioner. If someone's magical abilities are particularly potent, it is much more incumbent upon that individual to consider the consequences of every magical act.

I also think that a character who isn't introspective or ambivalent about his or her decisions, isn't very interesting. Perhaps the YA genre doesn't really accommodate the maturity that I wanted to see in Tea, but I was a reflective teenager myself. This is probably why I believe that she fell short, and that The Bone Witch became less worthwhile as a result.

*The publisher provided a copy of this book to me via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This book was my first read and first DNF of the year. Which is strange considering that I gave it 3 stars. So, here's the story. The magic system is excellent, the characters are like-able, the world is incredible. Unfortunately at 42% of the way through the book almost nothing had happened. There was so little intrigue that I just couldn't care less about the rest of the book. It was completely unfortunate. And there is SO MUCH POTENTIAL. My review isn't the only one to read this way, so my hope is that there was enough time for the author to do a significant re-write that would correct for these issues. At many points I can imagine the book taking off and really going somewhere - it just didn't need to sit in this slow dull place. Please, Rin Chupeco, do a re-write because that's a book I want to finish.

**This review will be published on my blog at www.myinterdimensionalchaos.blogspot.com on January 9th. I will add a link to the review when it goes live. It has already been posted to Goodreads and Twitter.**

When her brother is killed in battle, young Tea surprises everyone, including herself, when she accidentally raises Fox from the dead. While there are many types of witches in Odalia, Bone Witches -- those who can wield dark magic and raise the dead -- are feared and distrusted. With Fox accompanying her as a familiar, Tea begins training to become an asha. As a dark asha, she faces many challenges, given the open distrust of her kind. The fact that Tea's powers are wild and uncontrollable at times doesn't help make her path easier.

The world described in this tale is intriguing and interesting. Asha are like geisha....trained to entertain, dance, sing, and provide interesting conversation. But asha also wield magic and are trained warriors, fighting evil faceless ones and monstrous daeva that threaten the land.

At times the story got bogged down in too much background information or detailed explanation of asha training, dancing and clothing, slowing the pace of the action. The first half of the book held pace pretty well...action well balanced with detail. But in the second half, there were a few times that background details overwhelmed the plot. For example, an entire chapter was mostly explanation of an asha ceremonial dance, rather than anything actually happening. While I did enjoy the geisha-like atmosphere, at times the background details took too much time away from the main plot. I wanted less talk, more action. *cue Elvis music*

The ending of the story seemed a bit abrupt to me. Chupeco does plan a sequel, so perhaps the second book will pull the unresolved plot points together.

For the most part, I enjoyed this book. I like the idea of magic-wielding geisha and a hierachy of magic users, ranging from more mundane powers to epic warrior magical fighting skills. Tea was an engaging and multi-faceted main character. Her brother Fox was a great supporting character. Some plot twists and turns caught me by surprise....very well-executed!

The Bone Witch will be published by SOURCEBOOKS Fire on March 7th. I definitely recommend this book to those who enjoy YA science fiction and fantasy. Rin Chupeco is also the author of The Girl From the Well series. To find out more about the author and her other books check out her website: http://www.rinchupeco.com/

I really didn't find this story interesting at all. I really tried because the premise is great but I found myself skipping passages because I was bored. Flat characters, predictable plot. I just didn't care.

If you're looking for a quick read and not requiring something with substance this will fill the bill. The story iis okay, but not great. Not a waste of time but there are probably better options. There were some twists and turns that had promise.

Richly painted, immersive, and beautifully written.

I was not able to finish this book it was so tough to get through because the story was so slow moving and too paced with little details I wanted this book to read through smooth so that way I could enjoy the story but this story made it hard to enjoy.

ARC copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I don't often say that a book needs to be shorter but in this case I think 100 pages would not have been missed. The concept was brilliant - geisha like witches with elemental powers. The peril of heartglasses and exchanging of the same. A full, rich world full of strange magic and dark creatires. Totally on board with all of that. There just didn't seem to be much actual story beyond the epic world building, and what story there was seemed a little done-before. Tea didn't have much agency. Not quite a special snowflake but heading in that direction without much personality to back it up. This was one of those books I read to the end because I loved the world not because I cared about the characters. A shame in that respect because there was some real brilliance here. I was even ok with a slower pace because the world was so richly imagined. Just give me a more dynamic MC and a less flat romance and I'll be happy. Would definitely author's next book though.

First I'd like to thank you for the ARC. I have throughly enjoyed this book. I found it to be quite an interesting story. The suspense, the twists and turns, I found myself not wanting to put this book down, I felt like I had to find out what is next. And I should of stuck with my gut feelings, I didn't and was taken by total surprise. Well done I will be recommending this book to my family and friends.

I only made it 30% but honestly that's all I can take. Boring characters doing boring things - the story is going absolutely no where and nothing makes much sense. The main character Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, but not even that was written in a way that was exciting enough to make me want to continue reading. Tea is basically every female protagonist in a YA novel who is the chosen-one-but-is-just-an-ordinary-girl. I really dislike that trope. Can we just not do that any more?

I felt like this book had so much potential. I really wanted it to be good - the cover is beautiful, the premise sounds amazing, but it just wasn't.

This book really had great potential. I'm an avid fan of science fiction/fantasy. This book isn't bad, but it isn't great. I felt as though the plot dragged on forever. Everything was over described. I kept wanting more to happen with the lead character. However, the writing style was good and the word use was very good. Just wish it all came together better.