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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
reflective
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting story but too slow and found it difficult to focus
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Really interesting ideas and good start but was super slow moving and felt very repetitive and I could bring myself to finish.
warning: this review contains spoilers. it's simply impossible for me to review it without them.
so, motheater. what a ride. it's 2 am here on my side of the planet, and i'm still trying to untangle my feelings about it.
the themes in this book are absolutely fire. an appalachian witch battling corporate capitalism, a mountain literally fighting back after being exploited for its natural resources, sign me up. the story weaves in environmentalism, the rage of the land, and generational trauma in a way that’s both lyrical and haunting. and speaking of lyrical—let’s talk about the prose. this isn’t just a fantasy; it’s literary fiction with teeth. the writing is lush, poetic, and full of quiet moments that make you pause and savor them. it feels like the kind of book you’d underline passages in if you were reading a physical copy.
the magic system threw me off at first, but once i got the hang of it, i fell in love. magic tied to the land, nature, and old mountain spirits just hits different. it feels raw and powerful, almost like a hymn to appalachia itself. then there’s bennie and motheater. the two leads are complex and flawed in all the best ways. bennie, with her modern-day anger and grief, is perfectly mirrored by motheater, a witch from the past with her own share of broken promises and regrets. their shared fight against industry and exploitation ties their stories together in a deeply compelling way.
now for the tricky part. the romance just didn’t land for me. i wanted to feel it. i mean, a sapphic romance between a modern woman and a centuries-old witch? yes, please. but it felt one-sided for too long, and the connection between them was overshadowed by everything else going on in the plot. and the ending… i get it. it makes sense narratively, but it veers dangerously close to the byg trope.
another thing that gave me pause was the representation. bennie is a black woman, written by a white author, and while i'm not black (i'm asian), there were moments that didn’t sit right with me. there’s a scene with bennie interacting with a white cop, clearly afraid because of the racial dynamics, but it feels out of place. it’s never revisited or tied to the larger narrative, and it comes across as surface-level at best. if you’re going to address racism, especially as a white writer, you’ve got to go deeper than one isolated moment that feels like a box-checking exercise.
so, yeah—motheater is complicated. it’s got a lot to love: the atmosphere, the themes, the writing. but it also stumbles in some significant ways, especially when it comes to the romance and representation. if you’re into lush, slow-burn literary fantasy and don’t mind a few rough edges, it’s definitely worth checking out.
thank you, @netgalley and kensington publishing, for the e-arc!
so, motheater. what a ride. it's 2 am here on my side of the planet, and i'm still trying to untangle my feelings about it.
the themes in this book are absolutely fire. an appalachian witch battling corporate capitalism, a mountain literally fighting back after being exploited for its natural resources, sign me up. the story weaves in environmentalism, the rage of the land, and generational trauma in a way that’s both lyrical and haunting. and speaking of lyrical—let’s talk about the prose. this isn’t just a fantasy; it’s literary fiction with teeth. the writing is lush, poetic, and full of quiet moments that make you pause and savor them. it feels like the kind of book you’d underline passages in if you were reading a physical copy.
the magic system threw me off at first, but once i got the hang of it, i fell in love. magic tied to the land, nature, and old mountain spirits just hits different. it feels raw and powerful, almost like a hymn to appalachia itself. then there’s bennie and motheater. the two leads are complex and flawed in all the best ways. bennie, with her modern-day anger and grief, is perfectly mirrored by motheater, a witch from the past with her own share of broken promises and regrets. their shared fight against industry and exploitation ties their stories together in a deeply compelling way.
now for the tricky part. the romance just didn’t land for me. i wanted to feel it. i mean, a sapphic romance between a modern woman and a centuries-old witch? yes, please. but it felt one-sided for too long, and the connection between them was overshadowed by everything else going on in the plot. and the ending… i get it. it makes sense narratively, but it veers dangerously close to the byg trope.
another thing that gave me pause was the representation. bennie is a black woman, written by a white author, and while i'm not black (i'm asian), there were moments that didn’t sit right with me. there’s a scene with bennie interacting with a white cop, clearly afraid because of the racial dynamics, but it feels out of place. it’s never revisited or tied to the larger narrative, and it comes across as surface-level at best. if you’re going to address racism, especially as a white writer, you’ve got to go deeper than one isolated moment that feels like a box-checking exercise.
so, yeah—motheater is complicated. it’s got a lot to love: the atmosphere, the themes, the writing. but it also stumbles in some significant ways, especially when it comes to the romance and representation. if you’re into lush, slow-burn literary fantasy and don’t mind a few rough edges, it’s definitely worth checking out.
thank you, @netgalley and kensington publishing, for the e-arc!
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
DNF at page 55. Too clunky, weird pacing, weird combo of being repetitive in a way that felt like the author needed to keep spelling out the setup in the first few chapters, and yet I had no idea what was going on in the flashback chapters. Not for me.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes