Reviews - The Once and Future Witches

10.6k reviews for:

The Once and Future Witches

Alix E. Harrow

4.12 AVERAGE

esiole's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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: Complicated

seyoung's review

3.0

Way too on the nose, ensnared by overly purple prose, prone to re-capping itself and over-explaining it's own cleverness.

But very timely, I like the overall plot, and it's very inclusive (even tho there isn't a single asian in the world)

cocolynn's review

5.0

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring 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

rekslovesreading's review

3.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

sharppointysticks's review against another edition

5.0

I don't give out a lot of 5 stars, but I throughly enjoyed this one! It was a great kick off to "spooky season" and a perfect September pick for The Coven bookclub on Fable. It is full of female rage, sisterly love (both blood and found sisters), and the fight for women's rights. To top it all off, the writing was absolutely lovely. If you're looking for a witchy fall read, this is it.

"They keep burning us. We keep rising again."

“Books and tales are as close as she can come to a place where magic is still real, where women and their words have power.”

“She knows that history digs a shallow grave, and that the past is always waiting to rise again.”

“History is a circle, and you people are always looking for the beginnings and endings of it”

“An angry woman is a smart woman”

“She is a woman who understands the value of words, especially the ones they don’t want you to say.”

“She thought survival was a selfish thing, a circle drawn tight around your heart. She thought the more people you let inside that circle the more ways the world had to hurt you, the more ways you could fail them and be failed in turn. But what if it’s the opposite, and there are more people to catch you when you fall? What if there’s an invisible tipping point somewhere along the way when one becomes three becomes infinite, when there are so many of you inside that circle that you become hydra-headed, invincible?”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
2025 🎧 Listen #73/Book #105

christyewen's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 47%

Actually got bored 1 minute into forcing myself through the last half of this

katelyn11's review

5.0

challenging dark inspiring slow-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

Author: Alix E. Harrow
Genre: Alternate history fantasy
Series: Standalone
Age Rating: Teen+

Synopsis
Once upon a time, there were three witches… James Juniper is the wild sister, fearless as a fox and curious as a crow; Agnes Amaranth is the strong sister, steady as a stone and twice as hard; Beatrice Belladonna is the wise sister, quiet and clever as an owl in the rafters. Behind every witch is a woman wronged, and the Eastwood sisters take New Salem by storm as they head the suffragist movement in a desperate fight for equality and justice.

Content Warnings
General Rating: Teen+ (14A / PG-13 / TV-MA)

Spice Rating: Mild—closed-door sapphic romance
Violence Rating: Moderate—torture and fire injury, abuse of women
Profanity Rating: Moderate—frequent use of Jesus Christ, occasional use of f*ck
Other Trigger Warnings: pregnancy, death of a loved one, child abduction, homophobia, outing, manipulation/coercion, torture, attempted murder, fire injury, racism, misogyny and sexism

Overall Rating: 5/5
Wow, what an incredibly beautiful story. Haunting, stunning, brilliant. An exploration of feminist rights in a world where women have few; a journey through the anger and injustice felt by women as well as people of colour. A desire to see equality between genders and colours. Each sister’s personal journey was stunning—Juniper from reckless anger to sacrificial responsibility, Agnes from self-sufficiency to open love, Bella from insecurity to confidence. The hurts and bonds between them were realistic and timeless at the same time. I’m floored by this book. It may take some time to recover.

What I Liked

The writing! Harrow is so brilliant at lyrical, poetic writing. This is the second book I’ve read by Harrow, and it was just as beautiful as The Everlasting.
The sisters! Each of the protagonists is compelling and strong. I love them. They are realistic, flawed, and complex. They each undergo their own growth journey:
- Juniper—so angry and reckless, but she learns that there is a cost to her recklessness, and it tempers her.
- Agnes—self-preservation is key, but she learns to widen her circle and let others in.
  Agnes thinks… of the terrible risk of loving someone more than yourself and the secret strength it grants you. (346)
- Bella—she’s insecure and uncertain, but this grows into confidence through her relationship with Cleo and her sisters.
August and Mr. Blackwell: Harrow nails this—she writes strong men who love and support strong women. She doesn’t fall prey to the feminist trap of man-bashing, and I love her for it.

Themes and Reflections

Misogyny: The power and influence of women is so easily and often misunderstood, and thus, feared. Harrow peels back the layers of women and witches in the 19th century, exposing the harmful stereotypes and lies told to and about women to keep them ‘in their place,’ that is, powerless.

Books and tales are as close as she can come to a place where magic is still real, where women and their words have power. (22)

Colonialism and religious assimilation: You can’t talk about witches in America without addressing the harms of colonialism and religious assimilation. Witchery is seen in direct opposition to Christian faith, which condemns the witches here as it did in real history. Harrow paints witchery as the only equalizing option between men and women; without it, women are perpetually powerless and at the mercy of powerful men. I’d like to think that the correct Christian response would be not to condemn women who are trying to find a way to be seen as equals to men, but to empower them and their God-given abilities to create life and growth in the world. Witchcraft, most often, is misunderstood by men and Christians alike; it is far less demonic than it is naturalistic and holistic, a use of intuition and the natural elements in the created world to heal and protect.
Political resistance to oppression: The parallels between the autocratic leanings of the United States in the past decade and the actions of power-hungry Gideon Hill are obvious. Fearmongering is a dominant method of securing power; witches are the scapegoats. The Eastwood sisters spark a revolution, a resistance to the oppression, and it moves like wildfire through the city, but not without consequences to families and relationships. One thinks of Nazi Germany, and the fear of harbouring anyone whom the government has deemed dangerous or traitorous. It takes courage to resist political oppression.

“Maybe they won’t tell our story at all, because it isn’t finished yet. Maybe we’re just the very beginning, and all the fuss and mess we made was nothing but the first strike of the flint, the first shower of sparks. There’s still no such thing as witches. But there will be.”

— The Once and Future Witches, Alix E. Harrow

Writing Style