Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco book thoughts

Synopsis

"When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the 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

I got an ARC of this from netgalley. Much thanks to Sourcebooks Fire and Netgalley. I feel bad for not liking it. I had to DNF it after reading 68%.

I was mostly bored through the whole book. Nothing happens. There is a lot of talk about what everyone, and I mean every woman, is wearing. About 90% of this book is hua, hairpin, fashion, and food descriptions, 5% dancing and singing and 5% actually entertaining. A lot of complex details were described about minor characters, about all their huas and fashion choices and a bunch of things that had me wanting to scream "I don't care!" at my tablet after awhile.

I thought a bone witch sounded interesting but what I feel I got was a bunch of fashion, dancing and singing...for men. There was also a lot of talk of parties and entertaining, the asha have to entertain...the men. They seriously felt like nothing more than glorified dolls. There is even talk about how women shouldn't even show their ankles or wear the "bold" color red, because it's isn't "appropriate" and instead of maybe saying that is crap...her mentor says that's the way it is and to get used to it. These powerful witches ended up completely ok with spending their evenings sitting through mansplaining, and encouraging their apprentices to get used to it as well...and that is where I couldn't take it anymore. Before I was already very bored, the characters fell flat to me and it just felt like it was never going to end or do anything remotely interesting...and then that. I just couldn't anymore, and i'm sorry. Powerful witches...having to do as men say, sit through a bunch of mansplaining and entertain the snobbish men with a bunch of work at singing, dancing, and looking exactly the way the men want them to, describing everything they wear in extremely long detail and what they eat. Also a lot of chores, just endless chores.

I got to the point I don't even care what she did. I don't know what she did or what's going on, and I don't care to continue with the torture to find out. I'm sorry, I know that's harsh, but it really felt like that to me. I ended up giving it 1 star. This is the first book of hers that i've read and I have seen people say they enjoyed another book of hers, the girl from the well, and not like this one, and I am willing to give another book of hers a shot. I'm sorry this just wasn't the one for me.