Reviews with content warning for Outing - Her Majesty's Royal Coven

Reviews tagging 'Outing'

Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

73 reviews

cumminsn's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.0

It is honestly sort of difficult to put into words my exact feelings on this book. Parts of it I liked quite a bit, while others had me physically rolling my eyes. The magic is very fun, and the lore of witches and how they connect to the earth and to each other I found compelling and interesting. But, once the conflict of the story started to come to a head, I found myself enjoying the book less and less. The villains almost become… cartoonish, in a way? It felt like the author was really trying to push home how terrible the antagonist is by just repeatedly having her state her transphobic viewpoints to the point where it was very irritating and tiresome even for me, a cisgender woman.

While there is very positive transgender, and LGBT in general, representation here, there is also rampant transphobia that I could see being very triggering to some. Also, the overuse of swearing and pop culture references took away from my immersion as well. For a book that has different characters that it switches perspectives between, I sometimes found myself having a hard time remembering who was who, with no very large differences in tone from one character to the next. Other than the antagonist, of course. The fact that she was evil was about the most obvious thing in the whole book.

I guess what disappointed me is that there wasn’t quite enough Fantasy to balance out the in-your-face politics that were constantly surfacing. I was more interested in the lore of the world, but the story seemed to stumble over itself to try and include as much political-correctness as possible that some of the characters didn’t even feel like genuine characters and more like just stereotypes being included for the sake of it, which was sad to read. Some of the language used, particularly internet-type wording and references, will likely not age well either.

I forced myself to finish this one. I was invested enough to want to do it, but I don’t know that I’ll be reaching for the sequel right away, if it all. In the end, I felt underwhelmed.

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sfdogmom's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

fantastic book. Very well written.

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batbaby's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious 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? No

3.5

The beginning of the book felt like an introduction of too many characters too quickly that I didn’t know who was who. But then characters started to grow on me. I’m not sure what the intended age demographic is it is written like a ya but the main characters are very much millennial + three 15/16 year olds. I know it is intended to be an allegory for transphobic policies and terms in the uk but the misgendering of a character both intentional and through adjustment to their transition just made me cringe a little. I did like the different magic types though and would’ve enjoyed hearing more about what each witch type was capable of
Minor spoiler

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3/4 way through I was sure I wouldn’t read the sequel but then when the action finally begins and the last chapter!! Maybe I will 🤔

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lizbefann's review against another edition

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dark 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? Yes

3.75

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elys3's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

For a book about feminism and sisterhood none of these girls are a girls' girl.

Not enough witchy vibes. This feels like X-Men super powers in every fight scene. I want more spells, cauldrons and the actual 'craft' in witchcraft.

Way to many PoVs and characters all at once. 35% of the book just to establish the story and characters.

Even after reading the whole book I'm confused about the organisational structure that is HMRC and how it functions.

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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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tense medium-paced

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

2.0

On one hand, I feel like the main message of this book is important and I'm glad its been so successful. But I bounced off of the extremely causal prose hard, and it was difficult to read so much misogyny directed at women by other women (please stop calling each other cunts holy shit!)

(I am also very tired of books that go "covid happened but we used magic to make it go away" ugh! And blaming the anti-vax movement on warlocks is so distasteful.)

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withlivjones's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.75

This was a fun read. I liked the exploration of the complicated nature of childhood friendships and sisterhood, especially when friends grow up and their fundamental beliefs start to clash. I also liked the explorations of topics like grief and motherhood. The story was gripping, even if it took some time for it to get really good. I feel like this would be a good read for people who loved the world of Harry Potter but want to read something with more LGBTQ+ representation and/or that is not written by a TERF.

That said, it’s definitely not a perfect book. As I mentioned, it does take a while for the story to get going and the beginning is quite slow-paced. I found Helena as a character to be fairly one-dimensional compared to the others, the way her transphobia consumed her entire personality and motivations - when imo more of a focus should’ve been on her desire for control and unwillingness to be wrong driving her towards these beliefs and actions - felt quite heavy-handed. Even if her being an abuse victim had been explored further than just being vaguely mentioned, that would’ve fleshed out her character quite a bit. She served her purpose in the story but I think she could’ve been an even more interesting character (while still being a nasty TERF).

The rest of my criticisms were pretty much contained in the final 50 pages of the book, hence the spoiler warning. First, I felt like Theo’s “metamorphosis” felt really… neat? Like it was such a quick resolution for her character and kind of sends a message that trans people who don’t pass or haven’t started their transition are somewhat lesser than trans people who do pass? I’m not trans so I don’t have any authority on the subject whatsoever and I would be really interested to hear opinions on the scene from actual trans people, but personally something about scene just didn’t sit right with me. Secondly, I did NOT like the complete 180 that Snow does in her final scene. I get that grief can radically change people but I still don’t think it could’ve made Snow go from being supportive of Theo when she first talks about her to Helena to straight up calling her a slur in that last scene? Finally, the ending frustrated me - it just felt like an unnecessary cliffhanger when there were already enough unanswered questions to lead to a sequel. Overall, though, the other 90% of the book was really enjoyable and a lot of fun.

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