Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - White is for Witching

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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charlieeee's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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perfectcupoftea's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

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adventurouspotato's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

2.5

I honestly don't know what was happening in this book, but the writing was really interesting, almost like poetry. I just felt like it didn't really go anywhere and the POV choices were confusing.

There are definitely some interesting ideas, but they are underdeveloped and don't seem to combine well together. Many things are unresolved. For example,

Tijana kind of just disappears, why was she even included at the start of part 2? She just dates Ore for a bit then dips. I think it's implied that Miri was actually the one who hurt her cousin, but it's barely addressed.

And what about Jalil?

His inclusion in the scene with the Silver women seemed really random cause I thought it implied he was haunting Miri, but after reading about this book online I guess she ate him?? I literally thought it was a dream sequence! I love subtlety usually but I just didn't get enough from this text to understand what was happening, what was real, or what was important. Even now that I know it's supposed to be a sort of vampire novel, it just was too vague.

Miri's pica is certainly dreadful to read about, but I can't help but wonder why this book was focused on an eating disorder instead of a sleep disorder, since it would make more sense with

her guilt at falling asleep when her mom died. Why did her brother even say that stuff anyways?? He could just as easily have said not to eat and then I feel it would have been more relevant to the rest of the story.

Maybe I'm missing something? I have many other similar questions, but I will stop here. The writing was so good! It's a shame the story was so confusing.

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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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