The Bone Witch Review: Gorgeous, Grim, Divisive

The Necromancer Fantasy That’s Half Masterpiece, Half Slog

I picked this up because the cover alone looked like it belonged in a museum, and I finished it thinking Rin Chupeco is one of the most underrated prose stylists in YA fantasy, while also understanding exactly why this book splits readers down the middle every time it comes up in a fantasy recommendation thread.

Tea and the Weight of Being Different

Tea raises her brother from the dead by accident, which tells you immediately this isn’t going to be a cozy read. From there she’s whisked off to train as an Asha, a magic-wielding performer and warrior whose specific gift happens to be necromancy, the darkest and most feared of all of them. What I loved is that Tea isn’t written as a chosen one who’s secretly thrilled about her destiny. She’s angry, lonely, and increasingly aware that the world that depends on her power will never fully accept her for having it. That tension between being needed and being feared is the emotional engine of the whole book, and it’s genuinely well done.

The Structure Is the Whole Argument

Here’s where the discourse lives. The book alternates between two timelines: a present where an older, harder Tea is clearly headed somewhere dark and dangerous, and a past where younger Tea is training, making friends, and slowly growing into her power. The present-day chapters are short, ominous, and packed with dread. The past chapters are where the actual plot lives, and they move at the pace of a very detailed apprenticeship novel. If you love immersive worldbuilding, the court politics, the asha houses, a magic system with real rules and cultural weight, you’ll be completely enchanted. If you’re reading for momentum, you’ll feel the middle third sag hard, and you’re not wrong to feel that.

The Romance That Isn’t Really the Point

There’s a love triangle brewing between Tea, the steady prince-adjacent Kalen, and the more roguish Fox, but calling it a love triangle undersells how backgrounded it actually is. This isn’t a romance-forward book, and I respect that Chupeco resisted the urge to let it swallow the plot the way so many YA fantasies do. It simmers instead of burns, which some readers find refreshing and others find frustrating when they came in expecting more heat. I landed on refreshing, mostly because the friendships and the found-family vibe among the asha actually carry more weight than any of the romantic subplots do.

What Genuinely Works, and What Doesn’t

The world-building here is some of the most distinctive in the genre, drawing heavily on Southeast Asian culture and mythology in a way that feels lived-in rather than decorative. The prose is lush without tipping into purple, and the dread that builds in those present-day chapters is masterfully controlled. But the pacing problem is real, not overhyped internet complaining. Large stretches read more like a very good travelogue of a magical society than a story with forward motion, and the ending sets up book two so hard that this installment barely resolves anything on its own. That’s a legitimate structural choice, but it means going in expecting a complete arc will leave you cold.