atirandomness's review against another edition
2.0
This book is unnecessarily hard to follow. And downright boring. Which makes me sad.
allisonsreading's review against another edition
Well...I stopped about a hundred pages in. I couldn't get into this book. I feel like I knew the same thing 100 pages in as I did 10 pages in.
katieem's review against another edition
Whew, almost a relief to finish this book, it was so intense. I wish I understood the “why and how this could have happened”, after finishing the book. However I think it’s just unexplainable.
andiadair22's review against another edition
5.0
Disclaimer: I listen to audiobooks as I'm going to bed, so occasionally I fall asleep for a chapter before realizing. However, I immensely enjoyed this biography. I can't believe it wasn't fiction! Schiff is a highly talented author.
andipants's review against another edition
DNF at 70 pages. It's clear the author did her research, but I could not get into this at all. The organization seemed lacking; it's basically a chronological account of the events surrounding the witch trials, but the book will randomly go off on long tangents about village politics or the history of witchcraft as a crime/sin, which are relevant, but not set apart or denoted in any way. It feels in many places like a big information dump, which makes it hard to keep track of everything. The descriptions of the interrogations and the alleged acts of witchcraft are also annoying, in that the author seems to be trying to present things as the villagers believed them to have happened, i.e., from the viewpoint that witchcraft is real. I'm much more interested in what actual occurrences could possibly have led presumably sane people to swear that they had, in fact, seen their neighbors flying through the air, or confess to bewitching local children. Obviously, much of that would be speculation at this point, but I'm much more interested in educated guesses from that angle than just rehashing the outlandish accusations. The closest we come to possible explanations are broad hints about local grudges and widespread alcohol use, but these are not new pieces of information, and broad hints are hardly satisfying here. Mostly, the strongest impression I've gotten so far is that Puritans were jerks, and I was pretty sure of that already.
mblanke's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Classism, and Kidnapping
leasummer's review against another edition
3.0
This is a heavy book - both literally and figuratively. This is a VERY detailed history of the late 1600s in New England, centered around the Salem witch trials. I got bogged down by the detailed background information - there would be multiple pages about the background/history of a character in the middle of the text regarding the hearings and then it would continue on with the hearings. There is a lot of good historical information about the government, what it meant to be a Puritan and what life was like during the late 1600s. However, this made it tough to just read through. There is little information about the accused and the accusers, due to the lack of historical data on them; it's basically a history on the guys who proceeded over the trials. A majority of the time it read like a textbook - for me, this is a great resource book but not so much a sit down and read history.
I almost abandoned the book, I had to force myself to keep reading - I treated it like a homework assignment. The only thing that kept me going was the interest in the subject, particularly Susannah Martin, who I am a descendant of.
I almost abandoned the book, I had to force myself to keep reading - I treated it like a homework assignment. The only thing that kept me going was the interest in the subject, particularly Susannah Martin, who I am a descendant of.