I had to DNF this one. It got a lot of hype, but I just couldn't finish it. I tried two times, but couldn't get into it either time.

When I was approved for an ARC of The Bone Witch on NetGalley, I was excited about getting stuck into a new witch fantasy. It has been a while since I’d read one and the added threads of necromancy and elemental magic only intensified my intrigue. I had also seen a few other BookTubers and reviewers feature it and of course, being the cover magpie that I am, the face of this book piqued my interest too. So first impressions were looking good!

The Bone Witch follows Tea, a young witch whose talent for necromancy becomes apparent at her brother’s burial when she, well, resurrects him! However, this flair for raising the dead makes Tea a bone witch, which is frowned upon in her society. She is taken away by Lady Mykaela, another bone witch and outcast for training in order to hone her skills and create some purpose for herself -defending the world from terrifying beasts called daeva who will submit to no other magic. However, war is about to break out amongst the kingdoms and Tea must use her magic to defend her family and royalty.

Each of the witches (or ‘asha’) have a ‘heartsglass’ around their neck. This is a representation of their heart in the form of colourful wisps in a glass vial and I really loved this whole concept. Lady Mykaela has no heartglass due to her falling in love and giving her heart away to someone who didn’t love her back. So many of the turns of phrase that she used related directly to how real unrequited love feels and my heart went out to her. The whole tragedy surrounding Lady Mykaela was beautiful and I actually wanted more from her point of view. I wanted to dig deeper into her backstory and I’d love a prequel novella dedicated to that.

There is a darkness that plagues the entirety of the story. It’s a book full of smokey mystery and deep sadness that Chupeco has only just begun to explore and that I hope she’ll continue in future books in the series. It’s told in dual time periods between the years of Tea’s asha training and some years later, where she is conversing with a bard in a distant land. In this part of the story, Tea appears to be listless and unsatisfied with her chosen life path. When she talks about her love interests and her family, there is an air that suggests that perhaps she longed to have a life full of love and companionship.

What struck me was the lack of real romance in The Bone Witch. As a regular reader of YA fantasy, a magical turbulent romance is something I’ve come to expect. Although Tea has crushes, nothing romantic actually materialises but I wanted it to which frustrated me. The plot was very much focused on Tea learning to control her powers and putting them to good use. While I found this journey interesting, I wasn’t immediately enthralled by it and I actually feel like the book could easily be a stand-alone. There were points where I wanted to will the action on but I can’t knock the character development. All of the characters, even those that we only saw in glimpses, were well fleshed-out and there was a great mix of personalities.

Being who you really are is a strong theme in the book. Defying the societal norms and letting your true self come to light appears to be a resonating moral. I do feel that this could have been built up a little more and perhaps it will in future instalments. I just wanted Tea to break the mold and become the fierce fantasy heroine that I believe she has the potential to be. However, the scenes in the wasteland gave me the impression that that’s her endgame and it just filled me with a disappointment that she didn’t seem to fulfill her potential. Although it’s a series, it didn’t feel open-ended which I found quite jarring.

The Bone Witch is an exciting, character-driven fantasy. It has a diverse cast of characters and there is certainly a lot of emotion. I’m unsure whether I’ll continue the series because I’m not immediately excited to get back to this world and it wasn’t a very original idea. However, it was fun and full of important messages.

I was really hoping to enjoy this book. I saw all the hype on Goodreads and YouTube. I didn't really like this book at all. I didn't care for the magic in the book or the necromancy. I was hoping to love this and enjoy the writing, but I didn't like the writing style either.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The world created by Chupeco was fully realized and the story was mesmerizing. Recommend to your YA readers who like Kelley Armstrong or Philip Pullman.

Excellent voice and fascinating world building. With lush descriptions and the magic system, I think this will be an easy sell to a number of our teens. I also appreciate the cover, which I think did a great job of tapping into the story's atmosphere.

this is a something different i haven't read anything like it before at least not a fansty story of a witch that deals with death. overall i did enjoy it and gave it four stars one day i will continue with this series

Unfortunately, I did not finish this book. The fantasy seemed contrived. The characters weren’t people I found I could relate to or like. It just was not my cup of tea. I did like the prose itself, though.

I wanted to love this. The concept is amazing. However, the concept didn't quite click and I was a bit bored reading this.

Although I got into this far later than planned and it was slow going at first, there was so much to love about this book. It was absolutely phenomenal. Tea was such a great main character, not annoying in the slightest although I would have liked to know her more but I believe it was the point to keep you in the dark about her. The supporting characters were amazing with so many different personalites. I loved the different kingdoms and cultures represented. It was different than most fantasies I have read in all the best ways. The best part was of course the dark magic and I just want to dive right back into this world.

This book was unnecessarily long and boring and so slow. I thought a lot of it could be left out and I would still get the gist of the story.

Oh, I so wanted to love The Bone Witch. Everything about it promised ALL the great things a YA fantasy should have. But this was definitely a case of high potential with poor execution. 

I get that fantasies tend to have a larger number of descriptions to create the world because, more often than not, the world is entirely made up. But this book became all description with very little story. The info-dumping was out of hand and bored me to tears. All that space taken up by world-building left very little for the actual story and by the end of the book, I didn't think anything actually happened. 

The protagonist was all sorts of special snowflake in the bad way. Not even memorable. Just a name on the page. 

Honestly this book just bored me. I was so excited for the concept and I kept on reading, thinking it would improve but it never did and I wasted hours on a disappointing read. I would like to think it was my mood at the time and I may go back and try the book again but I'm not very eager to do so.

A wholly original young adult fantasy in a setting with rich worldbuilding -- and necromancy, which is always a positive for me!

This book was definitely not for me. I attempted to read it twice, and was not able to get through it either time. I got about 10% of the way through the second time before deciding to DNF it.

This is a solid 3 out of 5 stars for me. I dig fantasy, I loved the cover and the premise, but ultimately the story dragged and I felt like I would never finish the book. When it takes me nearly a week to finish a YA fantasy, I know it isn't me that is the problem because I devour books that hit the metaphorical sweet spot. This book wasn't one of them.

The reason it dragged is multi-fold. It was boring. It waxed and waned in lyrical prose, which works for people like Laini Taylor and Roshani Chokshi, but the drive in their books chugged along and I never felt dragged back in the descriptors--this book just lingered more and more in the long-winded descriptions and any momentum it had disappeared. Not to mention, the long-winded descriptions were always for mundane things during mundane situations--it was overused for all the wrong things, and I daresay abused.

This is a massive book – in more than just page length. The amount of world building involved is immense, in a wonderfully immersive way. It might feel a bit slow to some readers who prefer more action, but I appreciated the attention to detail. We learn so much about the extensive magic and cultural systems at play here. I enjoyed all the references to different Eastern cultures and myths, but loved that it still became its own world.

The characters are so detailed, their reactions so authentic to the culture that is built around them, it makes them feel real despite being fantastical. I definitely empathize with a number of them and want them to get to their happy endings (a crucial thing for me, as I am an extremely character-driven reader).

I only regret that the book ends just as the action is beginning to occur. It made me immediately want more. I can’t wait to read the next one!

Atmospheric and intriguing, it reminded me (in a good way) of something Laini Taylor would write. I didn't intirely connect with the lead character, but she was entertaining in any case.

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco is the story of Tea and how her life completely changed when she found out she is an Asha. She has to come to terms with a lot of things and she could end up being the one thing that can stand up to incoming danger.

When Tea was a young girl, around fifteen, she finds out that she is an Asha, essentially a witch. There are a few types of Asha but, unfortunately, Tea finds out that she is a Bone Witch, the most feared, hated and misunderstood type of Asha there is. It also happens to be the most powerful. How did Tea find out that she is a Bone Witch? Oh, you know, she just accidentally brought her brother, Fox, back from the dead. No big deal, right?

So because Bone Witches are feared and hated, Tea must leave her home and apprentice under Lady Mykaela. She is taught how to read heart glasses to tell what sickness a person has, how to heal and how to destroyed dangerous creatures that plague her world. Even with all the good that Bone Witches do, especially protecting people, they are still looked at as evil, horrible abominations. You just can’t please people even if you save lives.

The entire time I was reading this book a lot of the scenes and aspects kept reminding me of Memoirs of a Geisha. This book has a TON of description, world building and backstory so be prepared for that if you decide to read this trilogy. We spend the entire book going back and forth between 15-year-old Tea and 17-year-old Tea so we are given a lot of information. I won't lie, it took me about three tries to finally be able to sit down and read this book without feeling the need to switch to another book. It is not because this book is bad, it's actually quite good, but I was just not in the mood for this type of read.

In the end, I am so glad I was finally able to sit down and comprehend everything that was happening in this book. It was such a rich story with an interesting plot-line and fun characters. Most of the book is, as stated above, world building and backstory but once you get closer to the end everything starts making a lot more sense. I will be diving in to book two right away.

Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars.

This is a very wordy, slow moving descriptive novel. This is the first book in a trilogy and it spent a lot of time world and character building. There was not a lot of action going on, which I had expected.

This book tells us the story of Tea, a girl who was born as a dark asha or better known as a bone witch. When she accidentally raised her brother from the dead, she was hated and feared. She was sent to the capital city to be trained to use her powers and serve the kingdom. This story shows how she overcomes obstacles, deals with disappointments and learns about her powers. The story is told from two points of view, Tea and a person named Bard who talks and hears Tea’s story. In the present, Tea is living alone in a cave. What happened to her debut as an Asha, why is she living alone?

I did like several of the characters. Lady Mykaela, Tea’s mentor, Tea's brother and familiar Fox, Kalen and Kance were all very interesting. Their lives were not really their own, but the way they dealt with things was interesting and left me wanting to know more about their past and future. Tea was a great MC. I liked how she stayed strong and true to herself, despite the demands and expectations. She was also very stubborn which got her in trouble a few times, but she always had good reason for it. I loved her relationship with her brother, Fox. It was such a true love and one of the best things about this story. I am not sure if I will read the rest of the trilogy or not. I do want to see what happens to Tea and the others, but the story is so slowwww. If you enjoy fantasy, character and world building and descriptive stories, then you will love this one. Be warned, the story does not end with this book, in fact, it is only the beginning and there are two more to come.

I love books about witches and was super excited to read this one, but just couldn't get into it. Unfortunately I could not finish it. It had a lot of promise, and might be other people's cup of tea but it just wasn't mine.

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to! With mixed reviews from friends , I went in with low expectations and an open mind. This story to me , was unique with an excellent fantasy world that the author did an excellent job weaving with words. The premise of magic and good and bad witches has been seen many times and I was impressed with this different angle. It is a great start to a series that I will pursue.