The Once and Future Witches [review]

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The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
Published by Redhook on October 13, 2020
my rating: DNF
Goodreads avg: 4.08 (as of 2021-09-10)
Spoiler-free review

Goodreads | Bookshop

There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.

DNF @ 20%

This book was perfectly fine but just not for me, so take my DNF with a grain of salt. I honestly didn’t vibe with any of the sisters, I found Agnes boring and Juniper annoying. I did like Beatrice, but largely because she’s sapphic and seeing her relationship with [redacted] was so cute! I almost didn’t DNF just to see where their relationship went, but decided it ultimately wasn’t worth it. The concept was really neat, but didn’t hook me enough.

Hadeer’s review really covered a lot of the issues I had with this so I’m just going to direct you her way. I think if you’re interested in this, you should still give it a shot! But it didn’t work for me.

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The Ten Thousand Doors of January [review]

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Published by Redhook on September 10, 2019
my rating: ★★★★
Goodreads avg: 4.11 (as of 2020-07-03)
Spoiler-free review

Goodreads | IndieBound | Author’s Website

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She became something else entirely, something so radiant and wild and fierce that a single world could not contain her, and she was obliged to find others.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the story here. For me, this was a page-turner but I know others have found it slow and I agree that the pacing lagged in some areas. The characters were fun to read but largely felt one-dimensional; I felt like I should have cared more about the side characters than I did and while I liked the story of January’s parents, I wasn’t really drawn to them as people. But the concept made up for it and the twists really got me. I read this as a YA fantasy and I believe the MC is in her late teens for the bulk of the book, but the author has said it was written for an adult audience, just for the record!

content warnings: loss/grief; animal abuse; forced institutionalization; racism

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