A review by xcelxdx
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

dark hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Overall enjoyed the concept and thought it was cool how they tied together the threads of a lot of different folklore stories. This book did fall prey to the standalone fantasy catch-22 where it became somehow too detailed/long-winded and superficial; due to the cramming of perhaps too many intricate plot points into 500 pages. I struggled to really connect with the characters and thought on the whole that their characters and respective romances and backstories could have been fleshed out a bit more. There were also some aspects where I felt the emotional journey the characters went on was perhaps too quick in the sense that it took about a sentence to process and come to a conclusion, but the author also used this to good effect in some instances.
The plague element felt a bit random in the book and it wasn’t properly concluded: what happened to the sick people, how did Eve get better? If it was due to GH’s death, did everyone get better? How is it spread… though perhaps as the book was published in 2020 this was something they wanted to diminish
all of that said I loved how they intertwined all these folk tales into one adapted and connected
but actually not really
narrative that cummulated
into a message of internal power and an almost rejection of fate. Injecting agency into a world where women have such little. I do feel the race aspect could have been explored further beyond the singular allusion of the non-inclusivity of the suffragist movement to woc
. Overall I really enjoyed the concept but it simultaneously felt a little like a slog to get through and left me with questions wanting more
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