Booklist Reviews
Chupeco brings her Bone Witch trilogy to a bittersweet close in this final volume of dark asha Tea's saga. It begins in medias res with characters previously loyal to Tea now turned against her and Tea's whereabouts unknown. These scenes, filled with confusion and anger, are juxtaposed with letters Tea sends to her bard, detailing her activities and revelations since leaving him behind. Thus, readers bounce back and forth in time, growing ever nearer to the "present" moment while cobbling together her story. Tea's desire to expose corruption within asha society drives her as much as her determination to create a shadow glass for the sake of saving her brother, Fox. Her dual quests take her to various kingdoms, but her increasingly dangerous, unpredictable behavior fractures her supporters. Chupeco really digs into asha mythology here, challenging characters' beliefs—none more than Tea's. While this builds tension and further enriches the world, it decidedly slows the story's action. Nevertheless, it remains required reading for fans of the first two novels, whose many questions will finally be answered. Grades 9-12. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.
ForeWord Magazine Reviews
Rare bone witch Tea's heartsglass is turning a dreaded black as she uses her magic to recall loved ones from death. For now, she's been able to hide its dark mottles, but she's in a race to discover the nature of this corruption before it destroys her or those she loves. In Rin Chupeco's The Shadowglass, the Bone Witch trilogy draws to a close. Tea uncovers the source of a world's magic and revelations that threaten to change more than just her heartsglass.
Tea's choices are the lynchpin of a knotted plot. A split narrative shifts between an unnamed bard who's trying to understand her tide of destruction and Tea herself as she wrestles with changing magic. These narratives bridge past and present, stretching and compressing action and pacing but never fully converging.
Tea flip-flops from a flawed hero to a sympathetic villain and back. Teasing out which deaths are valid and which aren't becomes increasingly difficult once the bodies start dropping—both in terms of Tea's own internal code and the novel's moral arc.
The novel withholds its answers until the final battle, not laying the groundwork for Tea's revelations. After a quest of increasing melodrama and tension, when the last battle's joined, the truth she unmasks isn't traceable. Most of her discoveries lie outside the narrative's action and are delivered as a fait accompli.
Perhaps most satisfying if read within the series, The Shadowglass is a story already in motion, its dense cast of characters and sprawling plot all converging on a conclusion.
© 2019 Foreword Magazine, Inc. All Rights Reserved.Kirkus Reviews
Tea prepares to make the greatest sacrifice in this impassioned finale to the Bone Witch series. In the present, Fox angrily searches for his bone witch sister, Tea, who will stop at nothing to save him from the half-life he has been living since she raised him from the dead. In the past, Tea is on a quest for First Harvest, the magical plant she needs to revive her brother, which she can only use after acquiring shadowglass. Conjuring shadowglass requires a black heart, and Tea's darkens as she continues to wield dark magic to achieve her goals. More and more lose faith in her when she becomes plagued with haunting visions and, in her sleep, kills an innocent with her own hands. But someone is using a blight rune to transform people into terrifying daevalike monsters, and it may very well be the same traitor in Tea's inner circle who has been poisoning her. Though the storylines never truly converge, readers gain insight into Tea's destructive choices and their aftereffects. Exhaustive explanations of asha history are important to the plot but weighty. Transgender Likh's exploration of her identity honestly complements Tea's own journey toward self-discovery, and readers will root for both their romances. Characters have a variety of skin tones, but race is not significant in this world. A worthy conclusion to a story that is, at its core, about love and letting go. (maps, kingdom guide) (Fantasy. 13-adult) Copyright Kirkus 2018 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
School Library Journal Reviews
Voice of Youth Advocates Reviews
In this third book of the Bone Witch series, dark asha Tea, who uses her inherent magical abilities to raise the dead and tame monsters, seeks the Shadowglass. This will enable her to harness immortality but may also rid the world of magic, potentially destroying the Heartsglass, which determines fate and reveals truths. If Tea fails in this quest, she jeopardizes the life of her beloved brother, Fox—whom she resurrected in the first volume and with whom she now shares a telepathic bond—as well as the lives of all magical beings. Her own mortality lies in the balance, yet the pursuit of the fundamental source and purpose of magic compels her to risk everything. A mysterious pestilence, the Blight, transforms victims into violent monsters, hampering Tea's triumph over dark forces. Alternating chapters in Tea's voice and her traveling bard lack smooth transitions, making the leap between present and future jarring and disorienting. Shedding the easy readability of The Bone Witch (Sourcebooks Fire, 2017), this installment is dense, fragmented, and inaccessible by contrast, with an excessive and ever-increasing cast of characters, rendering it unable to stand alone if the reader is not familiar with the backstory. Fans of the fantasy adventure series may revel in the complex weave of fantastical creatures, foreboding omens, archaic legend, and enchanted devices, but new readers may find the narrative impenetrable. A highlight of the book is the transgender asha Likh, a young man who defies tradition to realize a new identity and seeks a spell "to occupy a different body." The transition of male to female pronouns challenges readers to question gender stereotypes and conventions.—Rebecca Jung. 3Q 3P M J Copyright 2019 Voya Reviews.