This is a book that has been kind of lurking at the edge of my awareness for a while, so when it was announced as the book of the month for the Feminism in Fantasy group, I decided to take time out of my busy schedule reading other books to read this book in particular. I’m glad I did, it was excellent.
It follows the early life of a young woman named Tea, who discovers she is a magic wielder known as an asha when she accidentally resurrects her recently deceased brother. Asha are highly honored in society, and are extensively trained in their magic, in physical combat, and in arts such as music and dancing. “Sorceress geishas” is not an inappropriate description. But Tea is a little different - she is a rare dark asha, otherwise known as a bone witch, able to raise the dead and other dark abilities. These powers make her very valuable, but also very dangerous and generally viewed with mistrust and suspicion at best.
It’s a story with a frame story, which I generally appreciate. The best known example of this kind of set-up on /r/Fantasy is, of course, the Kingkiller Chronicles, but I actually think that Chupeco makes better use of it than Rothfuss does (no slight against Rothfuss intended). The frame sections are very brief, usually only about a page between each chapter of the book, but they are compelling. In Kingkiller, I was and am curious about what led to Kvothe’s downfall and transformation into the innkeeper Kote. With The Bone Witch, I am desperate to know what transformed Tea into the dark, unapologetic, seemingly-bent-on-destruction person we see in the frame. The transformation of Kvothe to Kote is intriguing, but Kote’s life as an innkeeper doesn’t really impart any urgency to his story. Tea’s actions in the frame story really, really do. It makes for absolutely compelling reading because I really, really want to know how she got from there to here.
Chupeco is consistently able to make characters feel deep after only a brief introduction. The overall effect is that the worldbuilding feels kind of thin, but only when I step back and think about it. When I’m immersed in the story, I don’t notice it one bit. And much of it feels like a setup for what comes later, so even that mild criticism gets a wait-and-see tacked on to it.
My main problem with this book is the whole idea of the asha. The notion of these magic wielding women placing as much importance on the arts as on their magic just doesn’t make sense to me. The training in dancing and music and such that Tea receives is regular dance and music training - plain old non-magical me could do it. Poorly, because I’m a terrible dancer and can’t carry a tune to save my life, but I could do it. I kind of had to consciously set myself in the mindset of “this is what it is, just roll with it” when I read this book. Which was easy to do, because Chupeco is a wonderful writer and tells a compelling story.
4 stars for this; might get promoted to 5 depending on how the rest of the books go.
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