Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - The Bone Witch

Wow, I loved this book! I read it in June and three months later, I already own the second book in the trilogy and plan to read it soon. It's a bit light on action compared to the fantasy I usually read, but I think the second book will pick up quickly. The narrative choice to have an older version of Tea telling her story worked really well here, and the mystery of how she ended up on this remote beach making evil villain speeches kept me reading. Tea and her brother Fox have the sweetest relationship and I can't wait to see how it evolves as Tea gets older.

I was fascinated by the Eight Kingdoms and I could tell Chupeco put a ton of thought into these lands, the people, and the magic system. This book was a bit contained to just a few cities and villages, but I'm expecting Tea to travel a lot more moving forward. I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang or The Young Elites by Marie Lu; these books all have the fascinating theme of following the gradual corruption of the main character. And be prepared for really lush descriptions of clothing and other parts of the setting because there's a lot of that as well. I have friends who enjoyed this entire series so I'm really excited to continue it!

Content Warnings

madarauchiha's review

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? No

0.75

❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜 my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 💜 💙 💚 💛 🧡 ❤️

This isn't a review, it's more like my notes via moonreader pro [yes i'm have money :)] collated into a single document. Enjoy future me, and I guess other people.

Monologues! So many goddamn monologues! And infodumping! Most of the world building is in monologues or infodumping.

▪ The brown of my skin was paler now due to my frequent bloodletting, "

Hmmmm. Really. So the MC is brown, but I'm going to bet it's a light brown. A brown that can pass as a tan white person. Just based on how horny the author is for racial features that aren't, like, not white.

It also irritates me how much of the auxiliary characters are all blue eyed. Why is the author so self hating of brown eyes? Sad.
Don't take this too seriously but sometimes this book feels like a fucking race traitor. Like green eyes blue eyes pale skin red hair golden hair!!! Every hair and eye color but brown. And she also described someone, a single person, as having angular eyes. Which feels derogatory in a fantasy genre way towards asian ppl and idk if I'm over sensitive or what.

It feels just a tiny bit infodump-y but I wont complain. The magic system, so far, is pretty interesting. The constant flashbacks are irritating. Like I'm already hooked, you know? No need to tease me with what's going to happen in the following chapter.

Actually, what's irritating about the flashbacks is that they could've served a better purpose for the narrative. Emphasize the difference between mc and the mc back then. Indicate how the world itself has changed since mc had come into her full power. Anything except "Hey you know that thing you did? True or false? Yeah lemme tell you about it in the next chapter."

"Michaelmas"

Why is there christianity in this book...? Is this not fantasy? Wh-?

If the girl grew up poor why does she compare things to expensive minerals? Eg the princes eyes with emeralds. The girl is poor, shed be thinking of greenery or smt imo. Like, it'd feel more in character, you know?

Theres weird recurrent sexual harassment of the mc and I dont like it. Also things just kinda happen around her. How boring.

This book hits a lot of cliches and I dont think it does it well enough to be interesting. Like 14 chapters in and we've gotten to the

harry potter magic school section of the adventure.

It's like the author is throwing everything into the pot and hoping something sticks for the variety of readers who will pick up this book. Also I hate the feminine schooling. God I thought we left the sexist fantasy tropes back in the eighties.

I'm right about hating how much this is just fucking sexist fantasy because hello they're not even teaching this

dumb bitch anything about dark bone magic.

I feel like I'm wasting my time reading this.

Ok so this girl who feels like she's 14 yo gets taken away to be a student. Except not really, she's

an indentured slave made to serve the magical school as a servant. She's not taught anything until chapters later when, by sheer luck, she gets in trouble and someone forces her to reveal her super mary sue levels of power. At which point the magic school owners are liek 'oh fuck. I guess it's worthwhile to teach this dumb bitch some magic'. Because literally her mentor, the one who whisked her away at the start of the book, was away doing magical missions.

But even then that feels like my time is being wasted because it's not really magical learning. No, the MC is taught feminine trades. Dancing. Playing musical instrument. How to be a party host.

So this is basically magical geishas meets harry potter. Minus voldemort and magic fascists.

THEN. Then she doesn't even learn much about this bone magic until she gets in trouble AGAIN and the magical school owners are liek 'oh fuck. I guess it's worthwhile to teach this dumb bitch some magic, but for reals this time'.

Oh also there's a scene that's repeated twice in the last few chapters. It's the one where the MC

remembers she was bullied in a crowd by a strange boy because he thinks her bone witch people killed his mother.

It felt almost word for word, or hit the same beats as the first time it was brought up. And it was only a few chapters apart! Please, I remember, I don't need this beat into my head. I wonder if this was missed in editing or what.

I think there's bad guys? Like the main bad guy

is a fellow student who wants to overthrow the government.

I think. But who cares about that. That's not really a big part of the plot, most of it's about

growing up in magic school and also the love triangle. The love triangle

which, so far, is only hinted at.

There's a love

triangle, btw. I think. It's between a prince and a nobleman. Or another prince, I forget. Like Idk how a prince who is supposed to be helping run the kingdom and learn how to be kings / nobility has the time to fuck around with a junior geisha [maiko? what's the term?] but alright sure. It's ya, it's fantasy, I'll live with it. Though I think it's not purely romantic love, as she has to pick between her romantic interest and her brother.

But for reasons which aren't unveiled yet. I assume it'll be in book two.

Which I will be skipping. The plot in this book feels like dragging a very heavy stone across a field for several hours, to load it into a catapault, firing it into a wall that's only 5 feet away. If this book took a route that was actually scenic and interesting, I'd forgive it. But it doesn't. The writing is serviceable and doesn't make me want to burn the book after reading. So there's that.

I'm going to give reading the third [and final?] book just to get some closure. Judging by the cover blurb, this dumb girl hasn't accomplished jack shit since the first book.

content warnings:
minor xenophobia, misogyny, infidelity, q slur in historical context, wars, death,

major sexual assault? forcible disrobing, transmisogyny, xenophobia, misogyny, honor killing, body horror, death,

Content Warnings

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Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

rabelais's review against another edition

amre23's review against another edition

nee_cole's review

ashleycmms's review against another edition

kurumipanda's review

thenovelmaura's review

madarauchiha's review