kits_little_library's review against another edition
I absolutely should have looked at the TWs. This is completely on me for not doing so.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault
caffeine_library's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
mpshort's review
4.0
3.5 stars leaning towards a 4! The Witch Haven was a wonderfully magical but also dark story. Once again a perfect fall read that I accidentally read too soon. But I am happy that I did read it! This book is very slow paced in the first half but I didn't mind the slowness of it. It reminded me of an every day school girl attending classes with her friends just with a kick of magic sprinkled in, I really liked the mundaneness of the school in the beginning but I understand if it's not for everyone.
spoilers below!
The book really starts to pick up around Chapter eleven with the introduction of Finn D'Arcy. Now let me just say, I already could tell something was wrong with him from the beginning. It felt a little too obvious that he wasn't going to be a good guy, I wish that the romance between Finn and Frances was written better. IF it was, then the betrayal that happens later in the book would feel so much bigger. I never bought their relationship especially from Frances point of view. I can understand Finn's attraction to France (her power) but I never understood why Frances was into him, it felt a bit forced to me. Also maybe it was just me but Finn killing William didn't make any sense either, the initial betrayal of him using Frances for her power was already enough to deem him as a bad guy, I just didn't buy it.
I really liked Lena and Maxine, they were great friends to Frances. I really liked how Lena was very much her own person, she wasn't there just to support Frances. Also I loved how Maxine and Lena had their own specialized magic (Lena being a seer and Maxine being a finder) I wish we had something like that with Frances I wasn't satisfied with her just being good with everything (maybe her specialty could have been blood magic since she was very fast to control people)
Speaking of Frances, I overall thought she was an okay protagonist. I did want her to find out who killed her brother but she was so fast to abandon her friends it was like damn okay. But then I sympathize with her because she's a scared girl thrown into the secret society of witches, of course she's going to make mistakes she's all new to this!
Overall I really liked this book they were just some parts that I think that could be better, improved upon. If there's a second book I would consider picking it up!
spoilers below!
The book really starts to pick up around Chapter eleven with the introduction of Finn D'Arcy. Now let me just say, I already could tell something was wrong with him from the beginning. It felt a little too obvious that he wasn't going to be a good guy, I wish that the romance between Finn and Frances was written better. IF it was, then the betrayal that happens later in the book would feel so much bigger. I never bought their relationship especially from Frances point of view. I can understand Finn's attraction to France (her power) but I never understood why Frances was into him, it felt a bit forced to me. Also maybe it was just me but Finn killing William didn't make any sense either, the initial betrayal of him using Frances for her power was already enough to deem him as a bad guy, I just didn't buy it.
I really liked Lena and Maxine, they were great friends to Frances. I really liked how Lena was very much her own person, she wasn't there just to support Frances. Also I loved how Maxine and Lena had their own specialized magic (Lena being a seer and Maxine being a finder) I wish we had something like that with Frances I wasn't satisfied with her just being good with everything (maybe her specialty could have been blood magic since she was very fast to control people)
Speaking of Frances, I overall thought she was an okay protagonist. I did want her to find out who killed her brother but she was so fast to abandon her friends it was like damn okay. But then I sympathize with her because she's a scared girl thrown into the secret society of witches, of course she's going to make mistakes she's all new to this!
Overall I really liked this book they were just some parts that I think that could be better, improved upon. If there's a second book I would consider picking it up!
leahsbooks's review
4.0
CONTENT WARNING: murder, grief, blood, violence, domestic violence, racism
In keeping with my trend, this was another great read to kick off spooky season, and just in time as the weather is starting to show signs of cooling off. It’s hard for me to pass up on a book about witches, especially in the fall, and this one had all the signs of things that I’m likely to love, plus, I just got approved for the sequel on NetGalley, and I figured it was high time to take this one off the shelf it’s been sitting on since I bought it in December, dust it off, and start reading it. And I’m so glad I did, because I really enjoyed it.
It opens in 1911 New York City, and offers us a peek into an atmospheric version of a city that looks very different to the one we know today. Gender roles are very much present and expected to be adhered to, and the classes are sharply divided. Frances is firmly in the lower class—living in a tenement, scraping together a living as a seamstress in what basically amounts to a sweatshop, and trying not to freeze to death. Her brother was murdered a few months ago, and shortly afterwards her mother was committed to an asylum on Long Island, in what I can only assume to be Pilgrim State or Kings Park, both being forbidding and non-appealing options.
When Frances is accosted and her attacker winds up dead, she’s saved at the very last moment by two mysterious women who tell the police that she has tuberculosis and must be transported to a sanitarium. It sets up a dynamic early on, where they have power over her future, and she isn’t really able to leave, or else she’ll be forced to pay the consequences for a suspicious death where she is the main (and only) suspect. As a poor young woman with no supports, she doesn’t really have any other options.
The sanitarium turns out to be a magic school, but instead of teaching her how to express her magic, they teach her how to control it and keep herself small. She was expecting to learn more, but quickly realizes that they’re only reinforcing the same thing that she’s always been taught—that women have no power and are meant to stay in their gilded cages. The highest they are taught to reach is for a good marriage, rather than to grasp for power of their own.
“Though we are learning magic, we have been taught all our lives to remain small, and even here we seem to be in cages of our own making.”
Although there were many things that I really enjoyed about this book, one of the aspects where it falls short is Frances’s personality. She’s so wrapped up in finding out who killed her brother and her grief over his death that there isn’t much left over to showcase any of her actual personality. We get a petty, immature, and single-minded Frances, but she jumps from poor decision to poor decision, always relying on someone else to bail her out of the consequences of her bad choices. The damsel-in-distress role seems to be her trademark for so much of the story, and it was rather disappointing. I would have loved to see a stronger, more thoughtful, and independent character, with more well-developed personality traits, although I have high hopes for the second book, since this book resolves a lot of her conflicts.
“When it comes to my brother, I’ve never had much of a choice. This is how I love him now, in the dark with my rage and shaking hands.”
However, I did especially love the way it addresses women’s issues at the time, as well as the historical aspects of the story. It transported me to a different version of a city I know and love, and that part was done really well. The book touches on the suffrage movement, and especially on how it focused more on the struggle for white women specifically, yet not minorities. One of the side characters was Native American, and she talked about being in a residential school and how it affected not only her but her family and her people as a whole, as well as how the standards were different for white women and women of color. Underlying all of this was the way that being a witch was a way for women to grasp some power, yet they were still being taught to suppress that power and keep themselves small, when everything inside them was telling them not to.
“To be a witch is to have power in a world where women have none.”
As a debut, this is a promising start for Peyton. It touches on emotions of grief and loss and hope, found family, acceptance, trust, and betrayal, as well as racism, classism, and misogyny. The story itself is an intriguing one, centering a mystery firmly in the realm of fantasy and a magical school setting, and I couldn’t help but be fascinated, flying through the story. It’s paced well, with plot twists that kept coming at me out of nowhere, although there were a couple that I saw coming a mile away, and I loved the side characters, especially Maxine. I was thrilled to see a chapter from her POV at the end of the book, and forgive me, but I found her to be the most fascinating character out of the story! I’m glad that I waited to read this until I had the sequel lined up, because while this could work as a standalone, it did leave a plot thread unresolved, and I’m curious to see where this goes and what happens next for Frances. I’ve got high hopes for book 2!
In keeping with my trend, this was another great read to kick off spooky season, and just in time as the weather is starting to show signs of cooling off. It’s hard for me to pass up on a book about witches, especially in the fall, and this one had all the signs of things that I’m likely to love, plus, I just got approved for the sequel on NetGalley, and I figured it was high time to take this one off the shelf it’s been sitting on since I bought it in December, dust it off, and start reading it. And I’m so glad I did, because I really enjoyed it.
It opens in 1911 New York City, and offers us a peek into an atmospheric version of a city that looks very different to the one we know today. Gender roles are very much present and expected to be adhered to, and the classes are sharply divided. Frances is firmly in the lower class—living in a tenement, scraping together a living as a seamstress in what basically amounts to a sweatshop, and trying not to freeze to death. Her brother was murdered a few months ago, and shortly afterwards her mother was committed to an asylum on Long Island, in what I can only assume to be Pilgrim State or Kings Park, both being forbidding and non-appealing options.
When Frances is accosted and her attacker winds up dead, she’s saved at the very last moment by two mysterious women who tell the police that she has tuberculosis and must be transported to a sanitarium. It sets up a dynamic early on, where they have power over her future, and she isn’t really able to leave, or else she’ll be forced to pay the consequences for a suspicious death where she is the main (and only) suspect. As a poor young woman with no supports, she doesn’t really have any other options.
The sanitarium turns out to be a magic school, but instead of teaching her how to express her magic, they teach her how to control it and keep herself small. She was expecting to learn more, but quickly realizes that they’re only reinforcing the same thing that she’s always been taught—that women have no power and are meant to stay in their gilded cages. The highest they are taught to reach is for a good marriage, rather than to grasp for power of their own.
“Though we are learning magic, we have been taught all our lives to remain small, and even here we seem to be in cages of our own making.”
Although there were many things that I really enjoyed about this book, one of the aspects where it falls short is Frances’s personality. She’s so wrapped up in finding out who killed her brother and her grief over his death that there isn’t much left over to showcase any of her actual personality. We get a petty, immature, and single-minded Frances, but she jumps from poor decision to poor decision, always relying on someone else to bail her out of the consequences of her bad choices. The damsel-in-distress role seems to be her trademark for so much of the story, and it was rather disappointing. I would have loved to see a stronger, more thoughtful, and independent character, with more well-developed personality traits, although I have high hopes for the second book, since this book resolves a lot of her conflicts.
“When it comes to my brother, I’ve never had much of a choice. This is how I love him now, in the dark with my rage and shaking hands.”
However, I did especially love the way it addresses women’s issues at the time, as well as the historical aspects of the story. It transported me to a different version of a city I know and love, and that part was done really well. The book touches on the suffrage movement, and especially on how it focused more on the struggle for white women specifically, yet not minorities. One of the side characters was Native American, and she talked about being in a residential school and how it affected not only her but her family and her people as a whole, as well as how the standards were different for white women and women of color. Underlying all of this was the way that being a witch was a way for women to grasp some power, yet they were still being taught to suppress that power and keep themselves small, when everything inside them was telling them not to.
“To be a witch is to have power in a world where women have none.”
As a debut, this is a promising start for Peyton. It touches on emotions of grief and loss and hope, found family, acceptance, trust, and betrayal, as well as racism, classism, and misogyny. The story itself is an intriguing one, centering a mystery firmly in the realm of fantasy and a magical school setting, and I couldn’t help but be fascinated, flying through the story. It’s paced well, with plot twists that kept coming at me out of nowhere, although there were a couple that I saw coming a mile away, and I loved the side characters, especially Maxine. I was thrilled to see a chapter from her POV at the end of the book, and forgive me, but I found her to be the most fascinating character out of the story! I’m glad that I waited to read this until I had the sequel lined up, because while this could work as a standalone, it did leave a plot thread unresolved, and I’m curious to see where this goes and what happens next for Frances. I’ve got high hopes for book 2!
mannytuna's review against another edition
5.0
I liked the story a lot and I thought it was really fun. I wasn’t a fan of the plot twist with Finn because I really liked him. He was such a likable character and then BOOM evil. I still really liked the story and I’m giving it five stars because it’s left an emotional impact on my lol.
juliaj45's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
addisalazar's review
2.0
2.75. pasé 80% del tiempo desesperada porque ya quería terminarlo, y no era porque me tenía enganchada sino que ya necesitaba leer otra cosa. hasta los últimos 5 capítulos se puso bueno, pero fue algo predecible y la historia no es tan buena como te la venden :/ me decepcionó
maryalexhills's review
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
tgellman's review
3.0
Really disappointed with the overall feeling the book left me with but had to give it three stars for some of insane and beautifully crafted sentences.
on_my_bookshelf's review
5.0
Frances has never had an easy life, after her brother's mysterious death and her mother was confined to a Sanitarium , France was left to fend for herself. It only took one occurence for her to realize that she was different, an occurrence that would ignite her magic.
Wheeled to Haxahaven Academy by Maxine and Helen, under pretense. She soon finds out that this will be her new home a place she will learn to practice and craft her magic safely. All goes well till she receives little notes on her pillow, little happenings that look as coincidences. But Frances is so consumed with grief and determined to make contact with her brother that she doesn't comprehend the risks she is taking or the lives she is putting at risk.
This was such a beautifully written book, I enjoyed every aspect even though I could smell the trouble brewing, just reading how the story would unfold was exciting. Bonus magic and witches made this read really exciting.
Wheeled to Haxahaven Academy by Maxine and Helen, under pretense. She soon finds out that this will be her new home a place she will learn to practice and craft her magic safely. All goes well till she receives little notes on her pillow, little happenings that look as coincidences. But Frances is so consumed with grief and determined to make contact with her brother that she doesn't comprehend the risks she is taking or the lives she is putting at risk.
This was such a beautifully written book, I enjoyed every aspect even though I could smell the trouble brewing, just reading how the story would unfold was exciting. Bonus magic and witches made this read really exciting.