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mari1532's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
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
4.5
#TheDiverseBaseline (learn more at: https://thediversebaseline.carrd.co)
I listened to this book through my library on Libby.
Brief Summary: Logan is a witch...at least that is what she tells herself. She is hoping that by attending Mesmortes Coven Academy she will learn to better control her powers. What she doesn't expect is that the Red Three (Iris, Jailah, and Thalia) will quickly take her under their wing and show her the ropes.
Iris, a death witch, has designs on breaking the town curse and thinks that befriending Logan might be the key. However, Jailah, the school's most powerful witch, and Thalia, a nature witch, are not so sure that Logan will prove useful. As the girls integrate Logan into their group and work on breaking the town curse, they must also learn who they can trust before events turn deadly.
Thoughts: I realize how annoying it is to start a review by saying I wish a book was longer, but I wish this book was longer, but I am happy that there is a second book in the series. While I enjoyed this book it felt a bit rushed at certain points and wanted more of each character. That being said, Isabelle did an excellent job of weaving multiple main characters and a complex plot into a single book without making anything confusing.
I think that Iris was my favourite of the four main characters. I thought that the way that she was learning to navigate her powers as a death witch as they grew was interesting and I was immediately on board with nearly any plan that she suggested throughout the book. Although, I did find the growth between each of the girls and their friend group the most compelling part of the story.
Also, the mysterious aspect of the town curse added such an interesting layer to this book and it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Isabelle is an excellent writer and I cannot wait to read more of their work.
I would highly recommend this book.
I listened to this book through my library on Libby.
Brief Summary: Logan is a witch...at least that is what she tells herself. She is hoping that by attending Mesmortes Coven Academy she will learn to better control her powers. What she doesn't expect is that the Red Three (Iris, Jailah, and Thalia) will quickly take her under their wing and show her the ropes.
Iris, a death witch, has designs on breaking the town curse and thinks that befriending Logan might be the key. However, Jailah, the school's most powerful witch, and Thalia, a nature witch, are not so sure that Logan will prove useful. As the girls integrate Logan into their group and work on breaking the town curse, they must also learn who they can trust before events turn deadly.
Thoughts: I realize how annoying it is to start a review by saying I wish a book was longer, but I wish this book was longer, but I am happy that there is a second book in the series. While I enjoyed this book it felt a bit rushed at certain points and wanted more of each character. That being said, Isabelle did an excellent job of weaving multiple main characters and a complex plot into a single book without making anything confusing.
I think that Iris was my favourite of the four main characters. I thought that the way that she was learning to navigate her powers as a death witch as they grew was interesting and I was immediately on board with nearly any plan that she suggested throughout the book. Although, I did find the growth between each of the girls and their friend group the most compelling part of the story.
Also, the mysterious aspect of the town curse added such an interesting layer to this book and it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Isabelle is an excellent writer and I cannot wait to read more of their work.
I would highly recommend this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, and Murder
msradiosilence's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-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
3.5
TLDR; 3.5 rating, I love sapphics, I love Black witches, and I’m just…a lil disappointed.
Content warnings at the bottom. :)
The premise for this book sounded delicious. Magic school? A curse? Black witches?? Yes please! And then I get to the first chapter and I just feel like we have skipped several parts. Isabelle skips over Logan actually coming to the school and the months she’s been taking classes and drops you right into the story and it’s missing some key elements. A little bit is explained, but the feeling of missing pieces never leaves.
I love a good magic system, and one of my favorites is in Rainbow Rowell’s Simon Snow trilogy. This book seemed to have a very similar magic premise? I’m not sure, because it’s never really explained. From what I understand, there’s spell phrases that everyone learns and then when you completely understand them, you can change the words to make the spell work better with your personal magic. Which is very cool, except once again we’re not really told any of this. And since the Red Three keeps saying Logan’s proxy-ness breaks all the magic rules they have to follow, it would be very helpful to know the rules the Red Three have to follow, ya know?
I think it boils down to wanting more details as a whole. Balancing six POVs (I’ll get to that in a minute) means that there are a lot of descriptions that would round out the characters, the setting, the magic, everything, is sacrificed in favor of bouncing between Trent, Matthew, Jailah, Iris, Thalia, and Logan. It took me almost the entire book to realize this wasn’t like Harry Potter and the whole world is aware of witches. Thalia’s storyline suddenly made a lot more sense.
Six POVs is so much to juggle, and the book probably would’ve benefitted greatly from following three, or just being an omniscient narrator instead of omniscient about one person at a time. The POVs aren’t in first person. It took a lot away from the story, and I really think the plot and the details could’ve benefitted greatly from cutting down or cutting out POVs.
Also, by the end, I wanted to bop Logan on the head. She was incredibly selfish, incredibly naive, and she deserves a bop.
Because I do plan on reading the sequel (out in Sept 2023), I do have several questions not plot related I need answered:
- How exactly does the school work?
- How does magic work, exactly? Be specific, please.
- Why do Thalia and Lilly have familiars but not anyone else?
- Is there a limit to the magic witches can perform? How do they know the limit? Is there a way to increase the limit?
- Does everyone have a Pull? If they don’t, what happens? Are people with Pulls rare?
- What exactly do witches as a group do out in the rest of the world? How has the world changed from what we know irl?
- Are tethers a thing everyone has? Is it rare? How often are witches and mundanes tethers? What does it entail for a witch and a mundane to be tethered?
Please I have so many more, I would just love a lore dump or something.
Once I articulated my main problems with the book, I could push them aside (for the most part) and enjoy what I was reading, even if I was still confused, hence the three stars. There is a solid plot underneath, if we wanna go bare bones. Powerful witches willing to do dubious magic to save their school. None of them are all good, they’re not all bad, and I like that.
Rating: 3.5
Would I recommend? A tentative yes, but this is one the reader just kinda has to push through.
Content warnings: Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Hate crime, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Animal death, Child abuse, Cursing, Alcohol, Religious bigotry, Torture, Bullying, Car accident, Death, Emotional abuse, and Gore
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Cursing, Murder, Car accident, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, and Torture
karcitis's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Car accident, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Religious bigotry, Mass/school shootings, Genocide, Drug use, Child death, Self harm, and Murder
Minor: Bullying, Death of parent, Addiction, Classism, Animal death, Alcohol, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and Confinement
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