A review by dreamreader
Witches by Brenda Lozano

challenging dark sad slow-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

3.5

I feel about this the same way that I feel about Emily St. John Mande's Station Eleven, in that I think the writing is gorgeous, but I feel relatively misled about the type of book I was getting. I don't think I realized that this genuinely has no plot. Thankfully, the characters are engaging enough to follow, but a plot, or even just general forward momentum, really would have helped me like this book more. 

I did enjoy Zoe's chapters. I liked reading about her sister Leandra, who is probably the most interesting character in this book. Feliciana's chapters were hard, mostly because of the narrative choice to represent her interview answers as stream of consciousness. That made the pacing in her chapters quite slow and the prose extremely repetitive. I found this stylistic choice engaging at first, but after the 35% mark it just got a little tedious for me, when I realized that nothing was actually going to change or drive this book forward. 

I think if you like really character-driven stories, don't mind a complete lack of plot, and don't really need forward momentum to keep your interest, you'll probably really enjoy this. 
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