Reviews with content warning for Death - White is for Witching

Reviews tagging 'Death'

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

17 reviews

moonytoast's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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laurareads87's review

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

This is a hard book to review. There are elements of this that I really liked and think were very effective, and there were other elements that didn’t work so well.

The multi-POV structure including the POV of not only human characters but also a house was really interesting, but the lack of clarity around each perspective shift was not – having to figure out who was narrating was more irritating than anything. There are a lot of hints and allusions to various possibilities with no concrete confirmations provided, and this is really unsettling (in a good way); however, I’m left feeling at the end like there just wasn’t enough plot to make this work. Conceptually, there is a lot going on (again, in a good way) but as a horror novel, I didn’t find this particularly frightening.

Oyeyemi’s writing is beautiful, and the whole book feels very eerie and atmospheric. I would 100% read something else by Oyeyemi even though this book didn’t really work for me.

Content warnings: blood, body horror, injury detail, suicidal thoughts, mental illness, death, death of a parent, disordered eating, racism, xenophobia, animal cruelty

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lateromantic's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book is fantastic!! It's poetry, it's dark academia, it's halloweeny, it's across multiple cultures, it's impossible to pin down. Loved it. Do not read if you can't take food / eating / eating disorder content though.

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singalana's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

It’s not a bad book - it just wasn’t for me.

White is for Witching is a book by Helen Oyeyemi. It tells the story of Miranda Silver, who, together with her twin brother and her father, lives in a house that four generations of Silver women have inhabited. The twins’ mother has died, and it causes Miranda to have a breakdown and start spiralling.

The book has four narrators - three first-person and one third-person. This makes the story a little bit hard to follow at times. Miranda’s brother Eliot, her friend Ore and the house itself are the first-person narrators. Miranda’s point of view is narrated through the third person. Not only does this make the story slightly hard to follow, but it also raises questions about which of the narrators - if any - are reliable?

The writing style of the novel is complex: on the sentence level, it’s very beautiful and evocative, but the stylistic choices can be jarring at times. As the house appears to consume Miranda, the reader starts to question which of the events are real.

The book is certainly creepy and weird, but I’ve started to question whether weird books are for me. If you’re a fan of Murakami’s Dance, Dance, Dance or Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, you might enjoy this book.

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trashkingmax's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a tough read for me. To be quite honest, I've been mulling it over since I finished it, and I still don't really get it. All of the main characters sort of just have the story happen to them.

It's well-written, but it's just a little... bizarre. Like a vegan sandwich, there's a lot to chew on, but there's no real meat to it.

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chelseareads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Yikes. I'm not used to reading this type of book and it was a lot. But so well-written and carefully planned. The narration was excellent and the pacing was good.

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