Sadly, I did not like this book. I felt unattached to the characters and it was lukewarm for me. Sorry if this book review took so long.

Problematic and boring. I did not finish this book solely based on the views that were portrayed. The writing was alright, but made me very uncomfortable to read. Not for me.

I eventually put this book down 40% of the way through because I kept losing interest in the characters. I'm sure this story will appeal to many readers, but it didn't resonate with me at the time that I read it. Since I did not finish it, I did not write a public review.

I really wish I had just DNF’d this book when I realized I was incredibly bored from the very beginning. I choose to continue on in hopes it would get better. Unfortunately, it did not. I'm so disappointed, I truly wanted to enjoy this book.

Tea, the main character, is a bone witch. Someone who can literally raise the dead. She raises her own brother at the very beginning of the story and quickly gets swept off by a mentor to go to a school to be trained. You would think, wow, that’s a badass power to have. We are about to start some wild training coming up. Alas, like me, you would be very very wrong.

Instead, Tea spends the majority of this book being trained on how to dance and sing. The girl can raise the dead, but we go to Fantasy Julliard. Because that’s exactly what one would expect, right? If the author wanted to write a dancing book, I’d suggest perhaps mentioning it in the synopsis so at least people expect it to take up 80% of the book. I don’t even understand why she bothered creating this fantasy world with magic and whatever else when it was almost never used throughout the story. I think the main character spent more time whining about her powers than using them. And suddenly she knows what she’s doing without hardly any actual training whatsoever.

And the plot? Non-existent.

The only interesting part about this book was the glimpses at the future Tea. But those were few are far between. Perhaps a total of 3% of the entire book. Somewhere in those segments, is a really interesting story to tell. Unfortunately, we went to a dancing school instead.

A case of a pretty cover with a synopsis that sounds amazing, but is misleading.

This book was just okay for me. I didn't love it. It may not have been quite my type of fantasy. The writing was good, not great. The magic was fine. I just kept waiting for something to happen.

This book has an interesting premise. I mean it's essentially geishas who raise the dead. However, it's almost entirely exposition. At one point, I realized I was about 70% through the book but was still waiting for the main story to start. However, I still do kind of want to see where this whole thing goes, so I may check out the next book with the hopes of it getting to the interesting parts.

I love the story, love the whole concept, love the rise of Tea from a common girl to a bad ass Dark Asha <3 <3 <3

I recently bought a new kindle after my old one broke. For some reason I was unable to download this title from the cloud onto my kindle, therefore I will be unable to review this title. I am sorry for any inconvenience caused

This book had one of the coolest concepts: hello necromancy!!! No but really, the writing style was stunningly descriptive, and while the story did drag occasionally it was overall highly enjoyable. The magic system was really interesting and I loved Tea! My only issue was that some things seemed slightly random and I felt the story could have achieved what it did in less pages.

Rin Chupeco is a phenomenal writer, and the range she has shows especially with The Bone Witch. I love how this story draws from Japanese folklore in an Asian-coded fantasy. But what there also is to love is that this is a villain origin story!!! How many books (besides Victoria Schwab) even tells villain origin stories? Rin handled it so well, and the worldbuilding is vivid and moody that just sets the perfect eerie vibe just like the cover. It's a fun and thrilling ride to read through. I highly recommend, and I can't wait to see where she takes it in the next book.

I struggled with this book. For much of it, I felt lost and unsure of what was going on. But at the same time, I enjoyed the characters of Fox and Tea. Some of the concepts introduced, such as the heartglasses, could have used additional explanation. Part of this may be as this is the first in a series and such some of the questions raised may have answers or explanations in future books.

unfortunately i couldn't get into this i dont know whether it was the writing subject or mood. sorry

The Bone Witch had such a great premise and such a gorgeous cover that of course I was excited about this title. Also, a main character by the name of Tea is so cool!

Inside, this book was every bit as pretty as its cover and every bit as decadent..but, sadly it fell flat for me. The world was interesting and dark, with characters that stood out and a plot that moved towards the promise of a great ending - and yet I did not finish this book at 60%. What went wrong? The Bone Witch was indescribably slow and was so bogged down with beautiful details about clothing, face paint and other details that, while lovely to read, did nothing to move the story forward.

I understand all of these parts of a costume is important as Tea's work is obviously based on the Japanese culture. I just got bored of the endless description of each character's outfit, make up, non-essential social rank and instrument/skill set even if Chupeco is an incredibly talented writer. I'm a terrible student of the world, I know.

Once Tea moves on from training and begins her tale as a Bone Witch, I lost complete interest. The love story felt unnecessary since the world was lush and engaging enough by this point that I felt like the story was ready to really hit it's stride. Regardless, all YA novels seem to need a romantic interest of some sort. So, okay I went with it and continued reading..and reading..and reading..

I basically felt like I was reading pages and pages of detail and very little plot substance at the half way point. Chupero designed this novel to be in the "show-dont-tell" vein of storytelling which, for me, completely detracted from the plot once more complex things began to happen to our heroine.

The politicking seemed to have too much unrelated additional detail. To be fair, the first book was probably focused on the foundational development for the rest of the series, hence the monotonous details..but I just couldn't..

I really wanted to love this book since it had all the trappings of an amazing novel, I really did. And Ive put off writing this review because this book definitely deserves better lip service.

The Bone Witch didn't do it for me. Maybe if you have the patience it'll work for you?

This book wasn't for me. It was popular at the time so I wanted to give it a try, but its not a type of book I generally like. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. It was very high fantasy and that doesn't really appeal to me. I really do appreciate being able to have read this book however.

This book has been on the back burner for me for a couple of years now and I decided that a reading challenge was the way to get myself to finish it. Well, I started it but didn't end up finishing it.

There was nothing especially wrong with the book- 2 stars on Goodreads means "okay" and that's how I felt. I guess that in my life right now, life is too short to read okay books. After a couple hundred pages I skimmed to the end and was satisfied with my choice.

The book has a flashback structure which seems very in vogue right now but that I'm tired of. The small chapter that began the book is about a bard meeting the bone witch on a ravaged beach, watching her do bone witchy things, and ask for her story. These italicized chapters continue to be interspersed throughout the rest of the book, but most of the book is the bone witch obligingly telling the bard her story. This always takes the wind out of the sails of the story a bit for me- we know the witch is still around to swan about in fancy robes and discuss her autobiography with an eager bard, so clearly she's made it to at least the end of this book.

The rest of the book is the well-trod ground of the coming of age story for our witch Tea. (Is it pronounced Tee? or Tay? I want to know how to pronounce main characters' names, authors!) She's from a small village, ends up having a powerful and scary talent, and another witch comes along to take her to the big city and learn how to use her powers. It's sort of Memoirs of a Geisha combined with Kill Bill, with a bit of royal intrigue and romance thrown in. I think this makes it sound better than it is, because as I've said the book is okay. Maybe if I'd been in the mood for a long drawn out origin tale I'd have happily sunk into the book, but I've read a lot of origin tales and this particular book didn't wow me more than the rest. However, I'd try a book from this author in a different series. Sometimes authors need a bit of time to work the kinks out of their writing (so to speak) and this author does have talent. Now that she's written her origin story trilogy, I'm interested to see what she'll do next.

This is one of the few books in which the theme of necromancy is explored in fascinating detail. Instead of separating it as a blasphemous magic, It explored necromancy through the lens of humanity and through the ties that family have with each other which was a unique read for me. I was also really pleased with how the split timelines and multiple perspectives laid out the story. Despite knowing events that happen both in the past and the story was still mysterious and captivating. I can't wait to read the rest of the series!

DNFed. I tried several times to read this because I have been kindly provided this book to review, but even past the publishing date, I couldn't. I bought the published version as well, but was still put off by the writing which I found incredibly juvenile...Really loved the premise and really wanted to love this book as well, though.

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.