Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - La bruja blanca

When I started reading Serpent & Dove, I was convinced that I would give it two or even one star. The beginning was so cliché and ridiculous, the characters unlikable, and the world flat. This first impression changed while reading and towards the end, I started to enjoy this novel.

Other reviews mention this as well, but the set-up for the story is so ridiculous. The witch Lou and the witch hunter Reid are forced to married because of an absurd moment: Reid is trying to catch Lou after she stole something in a theatre. Of course, it comes to a fight, and they fall in front of the curtain and the whole theatre, half-naked. For Reid to restore his honour, he’s forced by the bishop to marry Lou, just how she’s forced to this if she wants to live. There were some other moments in the story that were just over the top like this.

Other things especially annoyed me, like this overdone twist that

certain characters are secretly related to each other. This is the case with Lou being the child of the witch queen(?) and the bishop and Reid being the child of Madame Labelle and the king. I really hate this kind of plot twist

. I was frustrated as well by this “characters get interrupted before they can tell important things”-cliché.

But like I’ve mentioned, the story gets way more interesting and dramatic towards the end, since the fantasy aspect starts to play a bigger role:

Lou’s mom is able to kidnap her daughter and wants to sacrifice her, leaving Reid and his friends with no other choice than saving her. The finale was so dramatic with Lou almost dying, Madame Labelle actually dying and the reveal that Reid can use magic as well

I furthermore had some problems with the world. Christianity plays a huge part in the world which is a bit weird considering that this is a high fantasy novel? Besides this, there was barely any world building that we get the name of the city that the story takes place only after the first half. I generally liked the French influences in the settings, but those are rarely described, just like the magic system.

The writing style was okay, I guess. It tried too much to be “adult” aka using many swear words and making sexual references all the time but in comparison, the humour is so juvenile. This is apparently often the case with these novels that are marketed as YA but are NA in reality – looking at you, From Blood and Ash. Capslock is also used for screaming which I never like.

Talking about sexual references, those are constantly only made between men and women. It was annoying how much alleged differences between men and women are emphasized and how they say about Lou that she “fights like a man” or that she has “a name of a man”. The story acts like it’s against patriarchy but stuff like this keeps the patriarchy alive. Of course, there are only male witch hunters as well.

It took me some time to get warm with the characters, even though they are quite vividly described. Lou annoyed me at the beginning, and I hated Reid, his anger issues and possessiveness towards Lou. Later, the characters changed positively changed, and I even started to like the shipping since the romance is written well, besides this cliché question-answer-thing to get to know each other. It’s funny how she doesn’t care what others think of her, but he does so a lot. What bothered me though was this implied crush of Coco on Ansel who’s still underage.

I’m really curious to read the next book in the Serpent & Dove series because from what I’ve seen, it’s supposedly worse than the first book.

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lauren_macauley's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

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nebulasaurus's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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nadiaherondale's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-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? Yes

4.75

I don't even know where to start, what a ride! This had been on my TBR forever and now I'm cursing myself for not having started it before.
First of all: I love the world building, the magic system and the duality of the witches vs the Church/kingdom (a common trope, but very well done in my opinion).
Then, the characters, Lou and Reid are great protagonists but as always I'm more of a secondary type of girl: Coco and Beau absolutely have me on a chokehold, and Madame Labelle what a woman with her secrets.
And oh boy does this book have secrets, plot twist after plot twist, I loved it.

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