Review: The Bone Witch

{on Goodreads}

It's been a while since I've read a good fantasy novel, and despite my history of avoiding young adult fantasies, there was something about this new fantasy series from Rin Chupeco that drew me in. The Bone Witch introduces us to Tea, a fourteen-year-old girl who accidentally resurrects her brother from his grave. This act reveals that she belongs to an unusual class of magical women, called asha, and furthermore, that she is one of only a few women who can conjure dark runes -- in other words, she can perform death magic. There's more to the story here, including a relatively innocent crush on a prince, lots of intrigue, and some really memorable characters. I was worried about the story being cheesy (you know, in the way that YA can sometimes be), but the plot was interesting, with allusions to catastrophe and a definite cliffhanger leading into the second book. What I was most surprised by was the world building in this book --it was certainly more sophisticated than I was expecting. I could tell as I was reading that Chupeco had a clear picture of the details of this world, and I loved how the setting and rules of society were revealed without it feeling like an information dump.

There was only one thing that seemed a little strange to me, and it has to do with the duties of an asha. In this world, the asha are -- from what I could tell -- essentially like geishas. Their job is to entertain their hosts with dancing and conversation. As soon as I realized this parallel, I had trouble aligning it with the fate and duties of Tea in particular. While a typical asha would not have any duties outside of entertainment, Tea's dark magic put her in a different class from other ashas -- not only was she expected to be skilled in the entertaining arts, as a bone witch she was also expected to protect the kingdom from dangerous beasts. It felt strange to me that she was still expected to take singing lessons when she really needed to be trained further in the dark runes. I'm hoping the reasons for her participation in the more frivolous arts will be revealed in further installments. I will definitely be following the series as its released. Though I don't read much YA, I would recommend this to fans of Game of Thrones and similar fantasies with magic, beasts, intrigue, and the like. I also want to mention that there was a twist thrown in at the very end that has me impatient for the second book (but I won't ruin it for you here)! This title will be released on March 7, 2017 and is available now at a pre-order price!

Bottom Line Rating: 4/5

Title: The Bone Witch

Author: Rin Chupeco

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire, 2017

Price: $12 to pre-order on Amazon

ISBN: 1492635820

Format: E-book

Source: Net Galley

Note: Top Shelf Text was provided with a copy of this text by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own!

The Book to Movie Experience

My family loves to watch movies, but only my mom and I really enjoy going to the theater. We've been reading a lot of the same books recently (mostly, I toss a book onto her nightstand and demand that she reads it now so I have someone to talk to about it), and it just so happens that two of our semi-recent reads have been released as movies in the past week.

I'm a big believer in the book-before-movie formula. It practically kills me every time I hear someone say that they've seen the Harry Potter movies so they don't need to read the book.

You can imagine the frustration.

(I hope.)

Our two most recent trips to the theater have really highlighted how that experience of reading a book and then going to see the movie version can go well or can be... disappointing.

More on this below:

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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was most recently featured on Top Shelf Text as a great October read. I first read it back in 2011 when it had just been published and really enjoyed it but didn't keep up with news of the series. I just picked up the second this year (on my TBR list this month) but decided I needed to re-read the first installment before reading the second. I managed to get it done just in time for the movie release. My mom had also just finished it a few days before me, so we went in with fresh memories of the book and high expectations.

Womp, womp.

Disclaimer: I love Tim Burton films. I think he's great and that his style works well with the world that Ransom Riggs has built. But I was really disappointed in this adaptation. It was nothing like the book (they even switched around characters -- so strange and confusing) and they added elements that had no place in the book. The end of the movie got really cheesy and I left the theater rolling my eyes.

Mostly, I was disappointed because I had high hopes. I thought that since the series has such a strong following with both teenage and adult readers that the standard for the adaptation would be along the same level as The Hunger Games or Harry Potter.

The Verdict: 

If you're a fan of the book, this movie is only worth seeing if you have the expectation that it is not grounded in the original story.

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I read The Girl on the Train back in April while visiting my brother for Spring Break and the suspense was so high that I managed to finish it in an afternoon (and get a bad sunburn in the process). This week I went to the premier show at our local movie theater, which was completely sold out and packed with women (seriously, there were only 3 men) who had all read the book and were ready to see how the movie measured up.

When the credits rolled and the groups of friends started chatting as we walked out, there was a general consensus that the movie was very close to the book and also really well done. It was extremely suspenseful and the acting was very intense. Even knowing the twist didn't help to ease that uncomfortable feeling that comes with knowing something bad is about to happen. I thought that Emily Blunt was really great at portraying such an unreliable narrator. 

The Verdict:

Highly recommended, whether or not you've read the book.

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What's your favorite book to movie adaptation? Which has disappointed you the most?

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Happy Reading!

-Madeleine-