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

I really wanted to give this book a higher rating because the whole concept is, in theory, quite cool and full of promise. However, the execution failed spectacularly in several ways:
1 - The biggest flaw for me was the writing. I'm aware this can be somewhat of a personal preference, but the writing style felt juvenile, empty and overly descriptive. There were often massive chunks of info-dumping about the world-building that could have been introduced in other ways, as well as long descriptions of common place objects/concepts intersperced with unnecessary pop culture references that just added clunk to the flow of the story. This is a great example of "telling, not showing". Everything was told to us in the same tone, so that descriptions of outfit colours and characters emotional status felt like they had the same weight.
2 - I went into this not knowing anything at all about the story, so I was quite surprised by the themes in the second half of the book. Not in a negative way. Trying to be as spoiler free as possible here, I think this was an interesting setting to explore the "arguments" that get thrown around when approaching the subject, and I wish we could have focused more on this instead of trying to do 10 other things with the story and the characters. It felt like the author wanted to cram as much representation and equality issues as possible in there, while also keeping it fun and light, and also dramatic and adventurous at the end. It all just felt shallow and not developed enough. I would have prefered to see Theo's story developed in a more sensible, complex way, instead of having the theme thrust upon the reader out of nowhere and have one of the main characters turn into an obnoxious Disney movie Villain half way through. I think it took away from the emotional connection the reader might have had with the characters, and it all ended up feeling a bit like those run of the mill adventure action movies you go see in the theater and immediatelly forget after. Then again, if you're looking for a fun fast read about LGBTQIA+ witches I suppose this isn't a bad choice.
3 - That ending! Brought the writing down half a point I'm sorry to say. I HATE it when author's do that. Just completely unnecessary, out of the blue, plotwist cliffhanger just so the reader feels compelled to immediately jump into reading the next book. I'm sorry. That's cheap af and I will not be continuing on.

Finally, and this isn't really a criticism, more of a funny observation - after the developments of the second half of the book, I cannot, for the life of me, not picture J.K.Rowling anytime a certain white rich TERF bitch is in a scene and that's kinda funny and probably on purpose lol

Content Warnings

foxwish's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional lighthearted reflective sad 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

4.0

A gripping storyline all the way through with highly emotive themes and dynamic characters. The plot was intriguing and difficult to predict, the magic system was fun to learn about and I loved how it was linked to nature.

It was wonderful to read a fantasy story from the perspective of adult women, where many of them have kids/kid charges and it's an accomplishment that the children were all dynamic characters and not frustrating to read about or detrimental to the plot in a way they sometimes are. Themes of motherhood and found family are very strong here.

The romances and friendships all felt organic to me and I was definitely rooting for the budding new romance in the book.

The trans storyline was by far the strongest and was what made this book 5 stars for me, it used a great many talking points I've heard from trans people, allies and TERFs so it was bone chilling how accurate to real life the arguments the characters were having felt.

We also get POC characters and lesbian characters, but their struggles were sidelined somewhat and I am hoping they will get their chance to shine in the next book.

I'm glad the second book is out because I can't wait to read it and find out where these characters go next.

Edit: After reading the second book I've changed my rating to 4 stars as I realised the ending to this book destroys multiple characters storylines and is partially responsible for book 2 being disappointing.

Content Warnings

risaleel's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

lintybird's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

4.25

Content Warnings

marwal's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

percys_panda_pillow_pet's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny tense 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

4.0

This might be the longest review yet on my page. I may also include minor spoilers for the first time as there were very specific character and plot choices I wanted to bring attention to. Due to how the spoiler system works, I will save these insights for the very end.

Alright. So Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson was a book I had gotten last Christmas after I had put it on my list. I knew it was LGBTQ+ from the tags on the book online and I knew it was about witches, and that was enough for me (as well, the bright pink cover for the UK version was gorgeous).

When I started the book, I got immediately sucked into the story and characters, something that I felt was a bit unusual as even the most interesting books tend to have a slow start as I get used to the setting/characters/set-up. However, from the start, I could tell that Juno Dawson did a fantastic job of balancing each character's POV, creating unique and interesting threads for every POV to feel separate and not blend together, but not too separate that one POV may have been preferred over another. As well, the linking of plot threads between the POVs was perfect, and I was always ready to hear what was going to happen next, no matter the character that narrated. In fact, I was very anticipatory about how each character would react to the situations at hand.

That was the easy praise, now let's get into the tougher stuff. I have mixed feelings about how Dawson presented her main themes and ideas. On one hand, I am a fan of R.F. Kuang, who also tends to be heavy-handed with the themes and points she is trying to make in her books. Sometimes messages can't be subtle and need to be in your face to understand them. Sometimes the lack of subtlety really works as a tool to inform readers that they shouldn't misinterpret this important message of the author, it's literally written plainly in the text. As well, there are a lot of people for whom ignorance is a bliss they can afford and this is a way to wake those people up and force them to see what everyone else sees.

On the other hand, I felt like Dawson was even more heavy-handed than Kuang with her main message in this book. There was so much just obviously written out that I almost wanted to cringe at the lack of subtlety. As well, I found myself annoyed at a few of the celebrity author reviews inside the book that praised it for its use of metaphor. A metaphor implies a need for deeper reading and possible different interpretations. This was not a metaphor, it was not a commentary, it was a direct message to the masses. Even as someone who tends to enjoy a lack of subtlety in writing once and a while, the extreme length to which this author went even had me wishing for a more keen writing style, allowing for more work done by the reader. I do not blame anyone who does not or would not like this book because of that writing style.

That isn't to say that the book completely lacked metaphors, which I will go into soon. However, before I mark my spoilers, I lastly wanted to comment on the word choices within this book. Dawson is queer and she has her own experiences to draw from. However, there was a feeling while reading that I wasn't reading a book, but rather scrolling on the internet. I don't like to say when something was "trying too hard" to be inclusive, as it can often be taken the wrong way. I was drawn to this book because of its inclusivity and diversity. But, I did feel as though it was "too much" for just one book to cover. There was a feeling of "trying too hard" because there was so much effort to address all sorts of issues. While I am glad for the attempt, I feel as though the book suffered for it, and it would've been better to focus on a singular issue (understanding, of course, that oftentimes these issues are intersectional). The book didn't quite fail in my mind, rather, it just wasn't done as well as I had thought it should've been.

Now into the spoilers. Something I really enjoyed as a metaphor was

Helena representing white feminism and cosying up to Hale, who represents facism, the patriarchy, and supremacism. She viewed herself as better for being a witch, one from a long legacy of other (white and rich) witches. She was a genuinely complex character for the most part, and I enjoyed her internal issues of feeling inadequate because of her mother but also believing that as a woman in power, she had to present a certain face. I do feel like as the plot went on, she became more caricatured, with no reasoning behind her bigotry except a need to maintain control over the status quo, which felt like a weak reason to me. Helena's type of bigotry is sewn into her life from birth due to propaganda persisting in the rest of society of othering certain types of people.

Dawson as well added the hint that Helena may have been abused at the hand of her lovers. It could've worked as an angle for her character if done better. It would've made sense within the metaphor of Helena representing white feminism, and how white women had certain power for their skin color, their gender will still be oppressed by the patriarchy. However, at the moment it just felt like a cop-out and an excuse that Helena had issues and that's why she was being awful.

I cannot say for certain that it wasn't on purpose that Helena slowly became a caricature of a villainous bigot. Perhaps as well, the sudden introduction of trauma from her past was meant to be a commentary on how bigotry is always trying to be excused for a sad sob story of how hard life can be. I am not sure what the intention was, and I'm not as concerned with it. The way it was written just didn't seem done well to me, and I felt the writing could've been stronger.

Focusing on another aspect of the story, as I said above, Dawson is queer and I won't question her experiences and what this book means to her. However,

from a writing perspective, I felt like the plot was a little lost when Theo was outed/came out as trans. It's hard to say, as I do understand that a big part of the book was meant to focus on this storyline. This is the reason Helena becomes the villain. But there is a solid section of the book where all the magic is lost, all the lore and prophecy hearing and witchy vibes are gone in favor of a contemporary story about a teen coming out as trans. I just felt like it took over a bit too much and could've used a bit more balance. I was also going to talk about Theo's transformation at the end, but with Dawson's experiences and my own perspective being different, I didn't feel comfortable critiquing it fully. All I will say is that I didn't really know how I felt about the magical transition. It wasn't positive or negative, just middling.

Finally, to wrap up this LONG review, I want to pose a simple question: Who is this book for? Now a book can be for anyone, people can read what they want. But a book, like any other form of media or advertising or construct, can have a specific audience it is catering towards or aimed at. So who was supposed to read this book? Someone like me who already agreed with the author's feelings on the themes and messages? Someone who is vehemently against those things? Someone who is on the fence? I'm not entirely sure, and I feel like knowing exactly what audience this book was meant for would help a lot in solidifying its purpose. And it does have a purpose, that is for certain. What do you think?

Content Warnings

bookishwondergoth's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative tense medium-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

4.0

I loved this book. It was well written, modern, fresh and topical and full of twists and turns.

I see from other reviews people have commented that the writing style seems too informal and littered with slang and references that are shoe-horned in. I personally don't agree with this criticism at all. The informality works for its contemporary setting. Also, Niamh and the relationship she has with her friends and their children felt very familiar to me and my own experiences as an adult who lived as a child through the 90s.

I also really enjoyed the examinations of intersectional feminism (or the lack of it in many white women) and its flat-out codemnation of TERFism. This was very clearly written in response to J. K. Rowling's transphobic essay published in 2020. It's not subtle, but then TERFs are not at all subtle with their transphobia in the UK, so did I care? No. Fuck TERFs. Their mindset makes ZERO sense and Juno Dawson does a really good job of showing just how completely nonsensical it is.

I do think there are some segments that could have been better fleshed out/made relevant to the main story (pretty much everything to do with Leonie and her breakaway coven, Diaspora). However, this is the first book in a trilogy, and in the author Q&A with Juno Dawson I attended a couple of weeks ago, she told us that Leonie comes more into play in subsequent books.

I also seriously disagree with those pointing out that for a book about feminism, the women are awfully divided and therefore the book is not feminist. That is the point. Division over these issues is not feminist because the division is caused by bigotry and intolerance. Therefore the people who do not fight for the rights of women—all women, including transwomen and BIPOC women—are not feminist and they absolutely must be challenged in their views. We're all getting fucked over by the patriarchy here, some moreso than others. Acknowledging that divide, difference, and the very real divisions in friendships and families who disagree over fundamental human rights is important.

This book made me really really angry in the best way and I can't wait to read the next one. Might have to borrow it from a friend as the copy I plan to buy isn't due for dispatch until November, gah.

Anyway, loved it. Highly recommended.

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