Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - The Witch King

This book is terrible. Reading AAVE by a non-Black author in 2022 is completely ridiculous. Are you serious? Ugh. Wyatt’s internal voice is annoying and repetitive. There’s not any significant character development (or real plot development, just lots of teenage angst) and it’s creepy reading about

literal teenagers having sex

. I just skipped that part. I think the

Fae being from another planet is a really cool idea but the execution was abysmal

. Also we’re not going to address Briar & Wyatt’s super toxic relationship? Or the fact that Wyatt needs a lot of therapy. I am sad

Wyatt and Emyr kind of don’t end up together

but also it’s probably a good idea because their relationship is also super toxic. Y’all love each other. Come on. 10/10 wouldn’t recommend. I want my 12 hours back.

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urlocalhethey's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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bookwormbi's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

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

4.75

4.75, rounded up.

Before I start, I would just like to say: afab people using binders, do NOT use a binder the way Wyatt does. He contemplated sleeping in one and I nearly had a stroke. Don't sleep in your binder, don't exercise in your binder, don't wear it for more than 8 hours, take it off if it starts to hurt. Be safe.

Normally when I like a book, I don't bother with a super detailed review, because I'm lazy. In light of the extremely mixed reviews on this one, however, I've decided to take a different approach. THE WITCH KING isn't for everyone. It's unabashedly queer, it's written in the voice of a terminally online abuse survivor who's difficult to love at times, and the humor can be a little--to quote some of the 1 star reviews--cringe.

All that being said, I ADORED this book.

I think if you were raised on MG/YA books like Percy Jackson, like I was, you may have been a little spoiled. Despite all the magical bullshit and no therapy, Percy and his friends remained lovable, relatable, quirky kids we could find ourselves in. Wyatt is not that guy. I didn't really start to like him until about 70-80% of the way through, and even then, it was frustrating to keep reading in his pov because it was so clear that his dynamic with Briar was not sustainable and that Emyr loved him, but he wasn't doing what he needed to do to get better. But that's life, isn't it? You go through some terrible shit, and sometimes you don't rise above. The self-hatred makes you a worse person, unable to see what's in front of you, unable to see who you are and what you can do. And so, you lash out. You make the wrong choices. You depend on other people to take care of you when you really need to take care of yourself.

To tell the truth, I think a lot of the reason I didn't like Wyatt at first is that he reminded me too much of me. Not the parts of myself that I like, not the parts of me that are lovable and relatable and quirky. The hard parts. The parts of me that build codependent friendships and push away love and make deals with the devil. I read to escape that, not to confront it. I think it speaks to Edgmon's skill as a writer that even though I didn't like Wyatt most of the time I was reading this book, I got him, and I wanted to know what would happen to him next. Moreover, I think Edgmon deliberately putting forward a difficult protagonist (and admitting that he felt very close to this character!) speaks to their courage. It would have been far easier (and probably more profitable) to write a story with a bland, vaguely likable protagonist in which the heroes upheld the status quo and saved the monarchy. That's not what Edgmon chose to write, and I'm immensely grateful. By the end of the novel, Wyatt has conquered (most of) his demons and made a commitment to love and to be better, and while it was a long journey to that point, I'm so happy to have been a part of that. I really think Edgmon is going places. With everything going on in the world right now, we need writers who encourage their readers to heal themselves and dismantle these systems in the process.

And they did it so well! My jaw was on the floor when Spoiler he revealed that Briar was part-witch and had opened the door to Faerie. I truly think that was some of the most masterful writing in the book. Wyatt's voice contributed so much to the effectiveness of that twist: he thinks of Briar as this perfect angel who can do no wrong, as a fragile human he needs to protect, and so we as the audience are lulled into this way of thinking along with him. The illusion breaks, and we see her, really see her, at the same time he does. Absolutely fantastic. THIS is the kind of writing I want to see from up and coming authors.

To briefly touch on what I didn't like: the book dragged for a little bit after the crew got to Asalin, there was one part where Wyatt describes a Black woman's hair as looking like an "elegant bird's nest" which I'm sorry, no, unacceptable, and Spoiler the twist with Clarke was not NEARLY as well set up as the one with Briar like Clarke was saying "oh everyone's already pieced it together" bestie no I did not because you being evil came COMPLETELY out of left field . But overall, I'm really impressed with this, and I'm excited to read the next book!

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onthesamepage's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

3.0

One of the things I really appreciated about this story is that the author went all out when it comes to diversity. There's a wide range of characters with different genders, sexualities, races, and there's even a (very minor) hijabi fae character. Definitely haven't seen that before, and even though she barely had any page time, I still appreciated that she was included.

I enjoyed Wyatt as a character overall, but he didn't always feel consistent. One moment, he'll profess not to care about something, and 50 pages later, it's suddenly a problem. He's angry at
Emyr one moment, and horny for him the next. Being in his head is a roller coaster, but I didn't mind it for the most part. I enjoyed his interactions with Emyr and his relationship with Briar, which was really sweet. I do think we're never really shown the depth of either relationship though, just told about it, which is unfortunate.

The two weakest parts of this book are the plot and the writing. The initial premise is already pretty shaky: Wyatt strikes a deal with Derek, Emyr's enemy/rival for the throne, to make such a mess of things that everybody will be against Emyr marrying him. And then he proceeds to supposedly cause chaos, but in a way that he's never caught at it, so nobody actually knows he's messing anything up. Wyatt definitely didn't understand the assignment.

There's also no sense of urgency; even big events get swept away under the rug in a very anticlimactic manner that makes one wonder why it was included at all.

The ending doesn't make any sense, even after it gets explained. I still don't understand what exactly happened, or how the explanation we're given matches with the actual events that occurred.

The writing doesn't really leave room for the reader to interpret anything by themselves. Everything is spelled out for you, from how Wyatt feels about what's happening now, to the parallels we're supposed to see between the human world and the faerie world.

There's also a lot of overexaggerating. For example:

It takes a minute for me to realize what he's talking about, and when I do, I desperately regret ever learning how to read.

The story is written in first person POV from Wyatt's perspective, which is common enough for YA. However, lines like:

But I'm not sure I should now. No, I probably shouldn't. Do I really want to--
Oh, it would appear I'm already pulling the deck out of my bag.

make it feel more stream of consciousness, which isn't really my preference when it comes to fantasy. I'm not interested in every single thought Wyatt ever has about everything, but that's kind of what I got.

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itsmeeryn's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny fast-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? Yes

3.75

The Witch King is a hilarious, powerful, and enjoyable read. There was incredible world-building, astounding humor, and the cast of characters all had unique, loveable, and flawed personalities which left them feeling very real. Wyatt’s anger was such a refreshing character trait, which I don't often see so blatantly in main characters, and while he spoke his mind and took no bs, it rarely, if ever, made me dislike him or disagree with his anger, and the side and minor characters were all well fleshed out, given lives, wants, and needs, outside of their scenes, not to mention the representation throughout the book left almost no stones unturned.

While the writing shines in some places, in others it doesn’t land quite as well. The amount of time spent on character description often took me from my immersion, and the dialogue towards the beginning, at times seemed a bit awkward. I feel a couple of the twists near the end had not being given quite enough foreshadowing which led the reveals to feel out of place or out of character. The messages and points the book covered, at times, also felt a bit too blatant, being almost spelled out for the reader, rather than letting us come to the conclusion ourselves.

While there are moments in the writing that took me from my immersion, Edgmon’s talent shines during the more lighthearted scenes, as well as the twists that were properly foreshadowed. I loved that when plots came together I was able to pat myself on the back for noticing a detail earlier leading me to a conclusion, or a larger mystery that I had theories about and anticipation of discovering which one is correct.

While I had a few mainly minor and personal critiques of the book, The Witch King was an absolute delight to read and I cannot wait to pick up The Fae Keeper to see what happens next.

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alexiab's review against another edition

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adventurous funny 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? Yes

3.75

I am the biggest simp on the planet for Wyatt and Emyr. oh me oh my.

This is a pretty solid fantasy story with some pretty impressive world building for a teen book, even though a lot of the language definitely feels like Youth Speak that will probably age very poorly. I really enjoyed the characters, it has all the best tropes, and the conflict was pretty solid for the most part. I've never seen a fantasy-world-hidden-in-modern-world story where the narrator wonders how the outside world has affected the fantasy society, whether racism and homophobia have leaked in where they otherwise wouldn't have away from our world, and I thought that was a really unique and interesting thing to see as part of the story.

There's a couple plot things that made me wonder if I wasn't paying enough attention to catch the foreshadowing or if it was just random, so I can't say if that's the book's fault or my fault lmao. All in all not bad. It opened pretty strong and had me interested and invested pretty quickly, and the few bumps in the road didn't completely derail my enjoyment of the story. I'm curious where the second book will go.

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thewildmageslibrary's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny

5.0

This was such a fun book. Wyatt is so dramatic and probably needs a life coach to help with decision making, but I love him. Emyr was a great surprise and idk, he can be my king any day. I love how supportive the main group in this is. Also, the ending - RUDE. Off to buy the sequel. XD

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