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ijustreallyliketrees's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Self harm and Blood
Minor: Torture
oblivious_girl's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
One of my absolute favorite books. It's basically Macbeth from the pov of the witches, but also if you flipped it on its head, twirled it around a little bit then showed it to the mirror and asked its opinion. A wonderful, satirical and cozy romp.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Self harm, Murder, and Blood
bronbaewr's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This one was bizarrely dark, I felt? Like there was more than just goofy peril, there was some straight up psychological terror and gore. Hilarious tho
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm
bookdragon_jess's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
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? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Self harm
bluejayreads's review against another edition
slow-paced
2.0
I want to preface this by saying that I think Sir Terry Pratchett is an excellent writer and on a whole the Discworld series is really good. And I’m starting with that disclaimer because for a large part of the middle of this story, I legitimately hated it.
My experience with Granny Weatherwax thus far has been in Equal Rites and the Tiffany Aching books, in which she was a hands-off, no-nonsense, highly respected and highly competent old witch, less a character than a force of nature that deigned to take human form temporarily. In this book she is a character – she has flaws and makes mistakes and encounters things she doesn’t understand and gets bested sometimes. And seeing a side of Granny Weatherwax that could be wrong and not understand and lose was just so alien to my understanding of her that my brain was going, “Nope! This is Wrong!” the whole book.
The other two witches in the book are Nanny Ogg (who was her usual self but seemed to be mostly there to round out the trio of witches and not to do anything in particular) and a young one whose name I can’t for the life of me remember. (Update: it’s Magret, pronounced like “regret” but with an M.) Her main purpose seemed to be to get the two older witches to explain things to the reader, complain about how the older witches are doing magic all wrong because they don’t go in for occult jewelry and moon phases and stuff, and be part of the most awkward and chemistry-less romance side plot I’ve ever read. And judging by the amount of times it’s mentioned, her most important aspect is how very tiny her boobs are.
The basic plot is the old king got knifed by his cousin the Duke, as one does, and so the Duke becomes king. The king’s toddler son ends up with our three witches, who give him to a troupe of actors to raise. The Duke is such a bad ruler that is disrupts the magical stuff in the area, so the witches decide they have to do some meddling to replace him with the old king’s son.
Which leads to another major issue I had with the book. The Duke’s abusive wife is clearly the true villain here. The Duke keeps growing more unhinged throughout the story, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s from a combination of years of severe verbal and psychological abuse from his wife, guilt over murdering his cousin (which his wife forced him to do), and legitimate mental illness that is literally pointed out on-page by other characters. And yet the book still keeps trying to paint him as the Big Bad Evil Enemy King. He doesn’t need to be violently overthrown, he needs a safe place, a divorce, a restraining order, a mood stabilizer, and a really good therapist.
This one was significantly longer than books 1-5 (11 hours in audiobook compared to 7-8 for the previous books) and it really shouldn’t have been. Considering the entire plot was “turns out the Duke is a bad king so let’s get the previous king’s son back and crown him instead,” it had no business being more than 7 hours tops. The middle dragged badly, and compounded with all the other issues I’ve mentioned, I started to hate this book.
I stuck it out mainly because I really want to read all the Discworld books and I wasn’t sure I could say I had if I DNF’d this one. And it wasn’t entirely horrible. The climax was fairly good, and there were some good one-liners and a few moments that legitimately made me laugh. But on a whole … this is most definitely not one of Sir Terry’s best.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Death, and Mental illness
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, Murder, and Self harm
Minor: Death of parent, Torture, Confinement, and Fatphobia
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