purplehulk713's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book was ingenious. Five princesses can each not do one essential thing and are kept alive (if their lack should typically kill them) by the magic of this curse until its caster turns eighteen. While a fascinating premise in and of itself, upon closer examination, each of these individual deficiencies is a perfect allegory for a specific mental disorder and the struggles that accompany it. Jane, the eldest and one of the two narrators, is Without eating or drinking, equitable to anorexia. Her sister Alice is Without sleep, comparable to insomnia. Their sister Nora is Without the ability to love, which could be considered similar to certain personality disorders. Their sister Grace is Without remembering, and her circular questioning patterns make her a dead ringer for a victim of dementia. And their littlest sister Eden is Without hope; her attitude of despair made me immediately think of depression. The book therefore is a great vehicle for understanding and empathizing with mental illness, but especially the circumstances that give rise to it. Reagan, a young witch, casts the curse on these princesses in an attempt to make their father, a toxic, egotistical king, suffer for his sins, but especially for his rape of her mother. This ultimately fails because the king (who is never given a name to denote the ubiquitous nature of this sort of figure) would rather let his daughters die than admit he was wrong and he appreciates that the witch made them weaker this way, because it makes him “stronger” by comparison. Actions and consequences are thus another big theme of this novel, but especially in regards to power, because magic in this reality can be sapped from women (and people across the gender spectrum, and some men, but there are very few male witches) if they feel threatened or frightened or despairing, etc. So men can drain women’s power literally from them with their abuse (and this book writes abuse and toxicity really well, expressing all of the complexities and multiple levels of feelings about the people who perpetrate these crimes). Magic is poetic and glorious in this novel, literal and figurative power manifesting the implicit barriers present in society (literal boxes around women, for example). Reagan’s Spell of Without, also, when taken metaphorically, can be thought of the princesses’ mental struggle once they reach adolescence (the curses all take hold of them on their Thirteenth Birthdays) and can finally realize the horrors of the castle in which they live and the father who supposedly loves them. I also loved how Haydu would pepper in support for the LGBTQ+ community like the implications that Alice is a trans woman and Grace is a lesbian. But the greatest thing about this book is that it is not simple, just as the issues it describes are not, just as its magic system isn’t, and that it is magic in and of itself in that its staggeringly poignant portrayals of injustice (silence, outright denials, claims of hysteria, half-truths, turning away, etc. etc.) compel you to rise up onto your feet and cast your own Spells (carefully) to unravel this evil. A clock from the oldest, tears from the saddest, a lock of hair from the most beautiful, and a crown from the richest cannot Undo the foulest curse upon the kingdom of Ever… but can a princess and a witch?
“What I know is that though some men are witches, it is only men who are not witches.”
“I look for something beneath the shame and beneath the hunger and beneath all the ways I've ever learned to be a princess and a someday queen. I don't know the word for what I find there.
Or I do know the word, but it can't possibly be true.
Magic.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Eating disorder, Toxic friendship, Dementia, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Cursing, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Body shaming, Infidelity, and Body horror
Moderate: Rape and Adult/minor relationship
Minor: War
andatherrin's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Body shaming, Sexual assault, Grief, and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Trafficking
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