Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - The Witchery

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The Witchery by S. Isabelle

8 reviews

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.

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kananineko's review

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I want to start by saying this is not a terrible book and i think there will be lots of people who will love it. However, it just simply felt meh to me. Very mid. I also think I am starting to get too old for YA fantasy. The plot and location was interesting, but tbh the worldbuilding fell kinda flat for me. (I also was rushing a bit while reading, so that might be my fault for potentially skipping some things).

The characters were hit or miss for me. I didn’t like Logan at all and her dynamic as the “baby witch” was kinda annoying and i didn’t really get why the others invited her into their group? I actually did really like Iris, and kinda wish she was the main character. I loved what we saw of Jaila but I wish we got more or her—I feel like her story was underdeveloped. And I didn’t really like Thalia either although unlike Logan I couldn’t really tell you why. Both of the male characters were bland AF and I didn’t really care about them at all. None of the romances were compelling either, the only one I was semi invested in was Iris and that guy (forgot his name) but I only grew into caring about them a little bit (but not enough to read the next book lol).

The plot was pretty weak imo. I feel kinda bad giving 2.5 stars bc tbh I still enjoyed the book overall and I read it pretty quickly, it held my attention. But tbh it was much worse than some books I've given 3 stars... Someone said it was like a bad CW show and I agree. So if you like those kinds of shows, if you like YA fantasy and stuff, I think you’ll like this. I also kinda hyped this book up in my head a lot bc the description sounded so cool to me and it took me like a year to actually get my hands on it, so the disappointment factor is there too.

One last note, the word “witchy” was used wayyyy too often and annoyed me so much. Like literally everything was described as witchy, like a “witchy book” rather than a “witch book” or "witch's book" idk why but that annoyed me? Def a personal pet peeve but just wanted to say it lol.

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