review; the shadow glass

Title: The Shadowglass
Series: The Bone Witch Trilogy
Author: Rin Chupeco
Genre: Young Adult, fantasy
Type: E-book
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

In the highly anticipated finale to the Bone Witch trilogy, Tea’s life – and the fate of the kingdoms – hangs in the balance.

Tea is a bone witch with the dark magic needed to raise the dead. She has used this magic to breathe life into those she has loved and lost… and those who would join her army against the deceitful royals. But Tea’s quest to conjure a shadowglass – to achieve immortality for the one person she loves most in the world – threatens to consume her heart.

Tea’s black heartsglass only grows darker with each new betrayal. And when she is left with new blood on her hands, Tea must answer to a power greater than the elder asha or even her conscience…

The only reason it took me so long to get to this finale is because I was certain it was going to hurt me. Considering the way the author set up her world, her characters, I was 100% certain about it.

And I was right!

I don’t think there was a moment where I could breathe as I was reading. My heart was racing, I was so annoyed every time I had to put the book down and pay attention to real life. This was everything I wanted in a finale, because we got our answers as to what happened to Tea, what happened to her group of friends, and what answers they were!

I love that it was not a contrite reason for Tea to fall – Tea wants answers as to how to keep bone witches living longer, and in doing so, finds conspiracies and betrayals, and finds out why the world is so unfairly skewed one way. And in this quest, begins to want to correct that. Not for herself, but for those that she cares about, for those that come after her.

And one would think this would be a slippery slope to write. One misstep and Tea would go from protagonist to antagonist, and that juxtaposition in the POVs was what made the first two books so interesting. Now we see how her character as it was in her story versus in the bard’s POV was always going to progress this way. The threads are all there, and as the pieces fall into place, you see how this was inevitable, and how you still want to root for her.

Tea is one of the best written characters I have ever come across, and I would die for her.

Besides Tea’s character, the threads of the story as a whole, all the little pieces and hints over the course of the two books come together in such a satisfying manner.

Was it painful? Absolutely.

Was it worth it. You bet it was.

The novel is written so masterfully, and there is not a page, not a sentence where something does not tug at your emotions. Even the betrayals we see in this book make you feel the heartbreak, the helplessness and anger and sadness. I predicted one, because of the way the story was written, the hints left on the pages, but the other I did not see coming until just a little before we got our confirmation. It was perfectly done, because the hints were there even in the first two books, but they were not obvious. And when they come together, they make so much sense.

Dual POVs can sometimes be annoying, but the author made Tea and the bard’s POV very distinct. And each character voice – even the secondary ones – were very established, and I love them all a lot. The relationships were fraught with layers and tension, and it was so realistically done. One can be angry with someone while loving them, after all. Emotions are messy, people are messy, and this story has never shied from that.

I am not an authority on representation, but I thought the way things were handled in regards to certain character’s developments, and other relationships was done very well.

This has quickly become one of my favourite trilogies of all time.