The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco is the first book in its three book series. Advertised as a dark fantasy, I was drawn into its premise of scorned witches, sinister curses, and resurrection. But did it live up to its description? Keep on reading to see my thoughts about the book
Everything in this review is just my own personal opinions and ultimately should not stop you from reading this book if you feel you would still enjoy it. Happy Reading.
Summary: From Goodreads
When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother, Fox, from the dead, she learns she is different from other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she's a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser 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 quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles... and make a powerful choice
My Thoughts:
Originally I was drawn to this book from its description of being a "dark fantasy". However, while reading through the story, I consistently wondered where the "dark" parts appear. Sure, the main character can resurrect the dead, but that alone doesn't make this a dark fantasy. None of the descriptors throughout the story made me think that this had a dark flair to it, more than anything, it made me think that this was a widely colorful world with diverse characters and different cultural representations. While that part of the book was great, nothing about it was inherently "dark". I really wanted to have more necromancy elements woven into the story, or more dark and morbid themes throughout, but unfortunately, this book fell short in that department.
When it came to the characters, I found it hard to feel attached to any of them. The story that was told never gave me any reason to feel connected to them or gave me much time to grow attached. The story was also pretty short for the first book. I feel if you are going to write a multi-book series, you have to spend an adequate amount of time describing the world, which this first book didn’t do. While I do appreciate that there was a world map and a reference at the back, none of that matters if you don't give me a reason to even look at it in the first place. You could develop a really in-depth world with rich, amazing characters, but if you don't write about them properly, then it makes the map and reference pages insignificant.
Throughout reading the story, it felt remarkably slow, and knowing there were only 30 chapters, I became concerned halfway through when the story was just getting started. The only part of the book that was exciting was the last three chapters, and at first, I thought those last three were enough to make me read the next book, but after waiting for a few days, that all changed. I just wasn't given enough to feel invested and to be honest, I didn't really understand why the "big bad" was bad. Sure, it was obvious that everyone in the story knew that this force was evil, but the reader was never given a good reason as to why they were evil. There was no motivation given, no explanation of why they were bad, nothing. Having one moment in the story where you have the evil force attack wasn't good enough because it was still hard to understand what the motivation of it doing so was. Why did this attack happen? What is the ultimate goal of this force? What events have happened to make everyone definitely think this group needs to be stopped? The story left me with questions, but the story also didn't provide me with enough to give me that drive to seek the answers out in the next book.
Overall, I feel that the advertising for this book was completely wrong. I wouldn't call this a dark fantasy, but a regular fantasy instead. I also think that this book had a lot of holes when it came to storytelling; for example, the “big bad” of the story should have been talked about more so that the reader could understand why it was viewed as evil, and finally, there was not enough to make you care about the characters by the end of it. When it comes to the first book in a series, you really have to make the reader invested in reading the rest of the books, otherwise, you're better off just writing one book instead of three. While I won’t be reading the other books in the series, I do suggest that you give this a read if you still feel that the book is worth a go. This has been my comment on The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco, thank you for reading till the end and I hope you’ll read my next review as well.
–Morgue
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