Reviews with content warning for Child death - The Witch Haven

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith

4 reviews

courtnoodles's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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sashiee's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book is amazing!! I'm obsessed with Lina and I love how her character was written. The book was super slow and a tad boring at first (first 130-ish pages) but it was so worth it. THE ENDING, THE PLOT TWIST OMG!!! This book gave me trust issues.

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leahlovesloslibros's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Frances Halloway lives as a seamstress in 1911 New York City, where she spends most of her time mourning the recent death of her brother, William. When her boss attempts to attack her and her sewing shears end up in his neck, she is quickly named as the prime suspect - only she has no idea how it happened. Two women in caps quickly arrive and take her to Haxahaven Sanitarium, which Frances is surprised to learn is actually a disguised school for witches. Frances yearns to learn more about her magic than what they are teaching at Haxahaven, so when Finn - an attractive young man with magic - shows up and offers to teach her all he knows, she is eager to learn. She must decide whether the risk of secretly meeting with Finn is worth putting her new friends in danger, and what other secrets may lie deep beneath the surface.

There were so many great elements to this book: witches, boarding school, murder mystery, women's rights/feminist movement - loved them!

What I liked:
- Diverse characters, though please be aware of some content warnings surrounding certain characters, especially a prominent Native American side character
- LGBTQIAP+ representation
- lots of feminist ideals throughout the book
- the twists and turns throughout the book (although some were predictable)
- imperfect characters

What I didn't like:
- some of the characters felt underdeveloped, especially some of the side characters at Haxahaven
- Frances was kind of whiny and impulsive at times, which I think was partially due to her age and struggles with grief (seeing as this is a YA book, I can't really hold it against her, as it seems that many of her reactions were age-appropriate for a girl in her situation)
- some of the plot twists were predictable

I'm definitely looking forward to reading the sequel.

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amandalorianxo's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I honestly was a little bit afraid this was going to be geared towards a younger audience when I skimmed the synopsis but figured it wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot. I’m really glad I did. This story takes place in 1911 in New York and Frances is trying to deal with the sudden murder of her brother while her mother is locked in an asylum. She’s seventeen and knows there is no other alternative to her seamstress job minus a factory. The owner attempts to cause harm to Frances and this leads to her being taken to an academy… for witches. Frances slowly befriends an Indigenous girl named Lena of the Onondaga tribe and Maxine, a lesbian who has lineage tied to France. The trio discover there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the magic they possess and it turns into a wild ride for roughly 400 plus pages. I’m happy that Smith didn’t sugarcoat or gloss over the treatment Indengenous people faced in the past as well as the lgbt community. Calling out on white privilege is also present a few times in the story. There were a few plot points that might be easy to spot and Frances at times irritated me when she didn’t take the advice of those that knew just a tad more than her but that’s kind of a guarantee when you’re seventeen right? Hoping for a book two in the future !

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