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jacobt_3756's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
scdiallane's review against another edition
5.0
I’m upset I haven’t read this already!! It has very quickly taken place in my heart as my new favorite series. If you’re a jaded former Catholic that has a love for all things witchcraft and a fascination of the witch trials/hysteria of Europe READ THIS BOOK IMMEDIATELY.
loonatrum's review against another edition
5.0
definitely one of the best books i read this year!! the plot, the characters, everything is so well done. I LOVE IT
francisdee's review against another edition
4.0
This book is exactly what it says on the tin. It is a young adult fantasy book, perfect for fans of enemies-to-lovers and the old good-vs-evil in which evil is maybe not so evil and good is not that good either. Is this an amazing never before written story? Nope. But is it enjoyable? I think so.
I listened to the audiobook, so I am sorry if I mispell some names! The book had two narrators, a woman and a man: I really enjoyed her voice, but I think his was good mostly only as the main character (Reid? Reed?)'s.. He sounded very much with a pole stuck up his ass like I imagine the character does!
I don't know if I can write a coherent review, so I will just jot down things I've noticed and impressions about the various characters.
I have to say, something I've noticed especially in the first half of the book is that our main lady Lou falls on her bum quite a lot, and our main dude R clenches his teeth too much. No seriously! Try counting how many times she falls and how many times he grits his teeth: I bet you it is quite a lot!
Two of the side characters, Coco and Ancel (Ansel?) are adorable. Coco is funny, and smart, and confident and just a very enjoyable character, while our lil boi Ancel is such a sweetheart, a cinnamon roll, an unfortunate soul stuck in the middle of the plot. But I can see he has a brilliant future in front of him, so can't wait to read more about him!
Reed kept giving me the impression of being a religious nutter, pole up his bum version of Carrot from Discworld: tall, ginger, righteous, of royal blood, in love with a lady with a dangerous secret.. You know. I really like him. I like how honourable he is, how seriously he takes his vows, how tense he is when he has to battle against himself when one vow goes against the other. Also, one last comment about our boi: the amount of times he thinks/says "My Wife" reminded me of Try Guys Ned before the fuck-up you know? Better Ned. Be more like R, less like Ned.
Something interesting was how, although the book is set in a sort of.. I guess 16th-17th century France? They seem to have hot water and plumbing, eucalyptus and sugar! No beef here, it is a fantasy book after all. Just funny.
Ah, and the sex scene was very sweet! I really liked it!!
One last comment: the book starts with our girl dressed as a dude, since it was easier to go around undisturbed than waltzing on the street in a dress. She meets R dressed like a dude, in various moments throughout the book there are various instances of her and other characters dressing up/being magically altered to look like other people. Plus, since the beginning of the book we are told that there are no male witches in the wild (or domesticated!), that men cannot have magic etc, and yet! We discover our man R is a witch (yer a wizard haReed)! The witches around him, when discussing this revelation wonder if he is indeed the first of his kind or if there are more in hiding/going unnoticed both around at the time and in the past. All this to say... I feel like if this was another type of book there was potential to look into genderbending possibilities and just more general queerness. Although I have to say I did notice the little nods at the magical girls being into ladies as well as into dudes so yay Magic says lesbian rights!
Interested in reading more, curious to see where the story will go!
Hit scale: there.. is one? Sex scene? If I remember correctly. Very sweet.
I listened to the audiobook, so I am sorry if I mispell some names! The book had two narrators, a woman and a man: I really enjoyed her voice, but I think his was good mostly only as the main character (Reid? Reed?)'s.. He sounded very much with a pole stuck up his ass like I imagine the character does!
I don't know if I can write a coherent review, so I will just jot down things I've noticed and impressions about the various characters.
I have to say, something I've noticed especially in the first half of the book is that our main lady Lou falls on her bum quite a lot, and our main dude R clenches his teeth too much. No seriously! Try counting how many times she falls and how many times he grits his teeth: I bet you it is quite a lot!
Two of the side characters, Coco and Ancel (Ansel?) are adorable. Coco is funny, and smart, and confident and just a very enjoyable character, while our lil boi Ancel is such a sweetheart, a cinnamon roll, an unfortunate soul stuck in the middle of the plot. But I can see he has a brilliant future in front of him, so can't wait to read more about him!
Reed kept giving me the impression of being a religious nutter, pole up his bum version of Carrot from Discworld: tall, ginger, righteous, of royal blood, in love with a lady with a dangerous secret.. You know. I really like him. I like how honourable he is, how seriously he takes his vows, how tense he is when he has to battle against himself when one vow goes against the other. Also, one last comment about our boi: the amount of times he thinks/says "My Wife" reminded me of Try Guys Ned before the fuck-up you know? Better Ned. Be more like R, less like Ned.
Something interesting was how, although the book is set in a sort of.. I guess 16th-17th century France? They seem to have hot water and plumbing, eucalyptus and sugar! No beef here, it is a fantasy book after all. Just funny.
Ah, and the sex scene was very sweet! I really liked it!!
One last comment: the book starts with our girl dressed as a dude, since it was easier to go around undisturbed than waltzing on the street in a dress. She meets R dressed like a dude, in various moments throughout the book there are various instances of her and other characters dressing up/being magically altered to look like other people. Plus, since the beginning of the book we are told that there are no male witches in the wild (or domesticated!), that men cannot have magic etc, and yet! We discover our man R is a witch (yer a wizard haReed)! The witches around him, when discussing this revelation wonder if he is indeed the first of his kind or if there are more in hiding/going unnoticed both around at the time and in the past. All this to say... I feel like if this was another type of book there was potential to look into genderbending possibilities and just more general queerness. Although I have to say I did notice the little nods at the magical girls being into ladies as well as into dudes so yay Magic says lesbian rights!
Interested in reading more, curious to see where the story will go!
Hit scale: there.. is one? Sex scene? If I remember correctly. Very sweet.
crosswarrior7's review against another edition
2.0
This book makes me sad. Really, really sad. Why? Because I genuinely wanted to love it. It's a book by someone who started off on Wattpad, and because of that, I so badly want to adore it and praise it and just lift it up as an example that just because someone started on Wattpad doesn't mean they should be held back.
But I can't. You know why? Because this didn't feel any better than the books I've read published by Wattpad Books, and I've only seen one of those I've liked. The other is a book I got really close to DNFing, and the others are ones I've read the free parts of on Wattpad and cringed myself away from buying.
I will start with the good. I did enjoy parts of this book. The romance had potential, what with a sarcastic-defense-mechanism brash witch with a reserved witch hunter who kept all of his emotions under control, and with her constantly shoving at every single one of his buttons.
I was really intrigued by the start of this book. It had a nice set-up, and the two characters and their struggles drew me in. Also, the witch x witch hunter just screamed Nina x Matthias, but it was definitely more problematic given Lou's obvious past troubles, which had me even extra intrigued.
I adored the magic system. Having to give up something for the magic? Chefs kiss! The witches and the side effect of their magic on others was terrifying, and I loved that. Creepy witches. Why do we not have more of these??? Like, seriously, I was so hyped when I saw that magic came with a price that could turn these guys into soulless monsters if they paid too much and got too greedy. I was here for that, and I was here for the part Lou played in all of that. Also the whole pattern thing of Blanches and the blood stuff of the Rogues. The magic system sold me.
Then... Then plot happened...
The heist part? Sure. The whole ring obtaining start was great. But then... Reid had to go to the theater where Lou has made the attic her home... And just... Then this started reading like a Wattpad book. Perhaps even a Wattpad fanfiction.
The order of events that has to happen for Lou to end up married to Reid is absolute ridiculous. It feels like the absolute nonsense insanity that would happen in a flipping dream. And I've had some pretty nonsense dreams, so...
From there, it just snowballs.
For one, this world's set up is just... Cringe. Like, everything was set up to be as misogynistic as possible purely for the sake of having a kick-butt feminist character. Like, I get that it always seemed to be that only females could be witches in the past, and I get this very well could have been how it was in the past... But this is a fantasy world, not set in real history, yet it was as absolutely anti-female as possible. Also, like, they keep using the Bible for plot points? In a fantasty world. There isn't even any indication that it is an alternative history thing because there's no reference to real places. Just... Randomly the real world Bible. And real world actions. In a high fantasy series. It just made no sense.
And it also tried to be very Old European with its style of living then went on and had extremely modern acting "strong" characters? Lou seriously sounded as if she'd been plucked from a contemporary fantasy and dropped into this story.
There's just no real investment in this world because it just can't decide what it wants to be except whatever is wanted from it. Which yeah, it's fiction, people can do whatevr they want, but... That doesn't make it *good.*
Speaking of inconsistent, have we spoke about the characters? Or the way they love doing absolute 180s throughout this entire book? Lou starts out as this untrusting, hurt girl doing anything to survive to suddenly the beacon of hope for a change in the way witches and witch hunters view each other? No transition for that whatsoever, just suddenly who she was.
Reid was at least mostly consistent in his conviction... But then he does something at the end that makes 0 sense whatsoever because "love" :D
And them falling in love? Hilarious, because it never happened, except somehow it did, because apparently between Lou doing everything she could to drive Reid away and him doing everything he could to force her to stay put... They suddenly learned they had a thing for someone failing to boss them around and failing to boss someone around? I. Do. Not. Know. Literally nothing to their interactions besides that. But suddenly, love, love so intense it makes Reid do the nonsense thing at the end.
Speaking of their romance, this book is not YA. It. Is. Not. Young. Adult. Young adult is advertised to 13-18, some argue 12-18. You do *not* show young teenagers *explicit, steamy sex scenes.* Literally, all it missed were the words of the anatomy. This is more a yell at the publishing world who refuses to acknowledge NA as a thing, but that almost made me quit the book because I was so enraged. The author probably knows what her true audience is, but I want to shove this book up the rear of whoatever keeps arguing it is YA and that NA shouldn't be a thing when literally 90% of popular Fantasy right now is NA :)))))
Outside of the romance that is utterly stupid, the plot was just... blah? Probably because the plot was the stupid romance for 2/3 of it. Then the protagonists just come off as completely idiotic with no understanding of logic (they are completely anti-woman but are all for an all-single-woman troupe??? Not that women should all be believed as dangerous, but seriously???). Then so many facepalm inducing parent revelations, Reid obviously being speshul which I could see coming miles away, witches powers are infinite until they need not to be, and just...
It's all a mess. It's all just "I want it to happen this way, so it shall" in terms of logic. And just... I hate it. I genuinely hated reading this and just wanted to be done. And it makes me so sad because I was so happy when I heard a really popular book had been published where it had technically started on wattpad.
Sadly, it feels like a Wattpad novel. So if you enjoy those, you'll love this most likely, but I have long since hated what Wattpad has done to the fantasy genre, so...
I probably have more complaints I could think up, but I'll just stop it at this. Two stars. A very painful two stars that is only that because I did love the idea of the magic. I hate giving up on series, but I'm not sure I'll force myself through anymore.
But I can't. You know why? Because this didn't feel any better than the books I've read published by Wattpad Books, and I've only seen one of those I've liked. The other is a book I got really close to DNFing, and the others are ones I've read the free parts of on Wattpad and cringed myself away from buying.
I will start with the good. I did enjoy parts of this book. The romance had potential, what with a sarcastic-defense-mechanism brash witch with a reserved witch hunter who kept all of his emotions under control, and with her constantly shoving at every single one of his buttons.
I was really intrigued by the start of this book. It had a nice set-up, and the two characters and their struggles drew me in. Also, the witch x witch hunter just screamed Nina x Matthias, but it was definitely more problematic given Lou's obvious past troubles, which had me even extra intrigued.
I adored the magic system. Having to give up something for the magic? Chefs kiss! The witches and the side effect of their magic on others was terrifying, and I loved that. Creepy witches. Why do we not have more of these??? Like, seriously, I was so hyped when I saw that magic came with a price that could turn these guys into soulless monsters if they paid too much and got too greedy. I was here for that, and I was here for the part Lou played in all of that. Also the whole pattern thing of Blanches and the blood stuff of the Rogues. The magic system sold me.
Then... Then plot happened...
The heist part? Sure. The whole ring obtaining start was great. But then... Reid had to go to the theater where Lou has made the attic her home... And just... Then this started reading like a Wattpad book. Perhaps even a Wattpad fanfiction.
The order of events that has to happen for Lou to end up married to Reid is absolute ridiculous. It feels like the absolute nonsense insanity that would happen in a flipping dream. And I've had some pretty nonsense dreams, so...
From there, it just snowballs.
For one, this world's set up is just... Cringe. Like, everything was set up to be as misogynistic as possible purely for the sake of having a kick-butt feminist character. Like, I get that it always seemed to be that only females could be witches in the past, and I get this very well could have been how it was in the past... But this is a fantasy world, not set in real history, yet it was as absolutely anti-female as possible. Also, like, they keep using the Bible for plot points? In a fantasty world. There isn't even any indication that it is an alternative history thing because there's no reference to real places. Just... Randomly the real world Bible. And real world actions. In a high fantasy series. It just made no sense.
And it also tried to be very Old European with its style of living then went on and had extremely modern acting "strong" characters? Lou seriously sounded as if she'd been plucked from a contemporary fantasy and dropped into this story.
There's just no real investment in this world because it just can't decide what it wants to be except whatever is wanted from it. Which yeah, it's fiction, people can do whatevr they want, but... That doesn't make it *good.*
Speaking of inconsistent, have we spoke about the characters? Or the way they love doing absolute 180s throughout this entire book? Lou starts out as this untrusting, hurt girl doing anything to survive to suddenly the beacon of hope for a change in the way witches and witch hunters view each other? No transition for that whatsoever, just suddenly who she was.
Reid was at least mostly consistent in his conviction... But then he does something at the end that makes 0 sense whatsoever because "love" :D
And them falling in love? Hilarious, because it never happened, except somehow it did, because apparently between Lou doing everything she could to drive Reid away and him doing everything he could to force her to stay put... They suddenly learned they had a thing for someone failing to boss them around and failing to boss someone around? I. Do. Not. Know. Literally nothing to their interactions besides that. But suddenly, love, love so intense it makes Reid do the nonsense thing at the end.
Speaking of their romance, this book is not YA. It. Is. Not. Young. Adult. Young adult is advertised to 13-18, some argue 12-18. You do *not* show young teenagers *explicit, steamy sex scenes.* Literally, all it missed were the words of the anatomy. This is more a yell at the publishing world who refuses to acknowledge NA as a thing, but that almost made me quit the book because I was so enraged. The author probably knows what her true audience is, but I want to shove this book up the rear of whoatever keeps arguing it is YA and that NA shouldn't be a thing when literally 90% of popular Fantasy right now is NA :)))))
Outside of the romance that is utterly stupid, the plot was just... blah? Probably because the plot was the stupid romance for 2/3 of it. Then the protagonists just come off as completely idiotic with no understanding of logic (they are completely anti-woman but are all for an all-single-woman troupe??? Not that women should all be believed as dangerous, but seriously???). Then so many facepalm inducing parent revelations, Reid obviously being speshul which I could see coming miles away, witches powers are infinite until they need not to be, and just...
It's all a mess. It's all just "I want it to happen this way, so it shall" in terms of logic. And just... I hate it. I genuinely hated reading this and just wanted to be done. And it makes me so sad because I was so happy when I heard a really popular book had been published where it had technically started on wattpad.
Sadly, it feels like a Wattpad novel. So if you enjoy those, you'll love this most likely, but I have long since hated what Wattpad has done to the fantasy genre, so...
I probably have more complaints I could think up, but I'll just stop it at this. Two stars. A very painful two stars that is only that because I did love the idea of the magic. I hate giving up on series, but I'm not sure I'll force myself through anymore.
watleestjorien's review against another edition
3.0
Ik vind het lastig om dit boek een beoordeling te geven, omdat ik een beetje gemixte gevoelens heb, dus ik kom uit op 3 sterren. Aan de ene kant was het een heerlijke dramaverhaal dat fijn weg las, maar aan de andere kant was ik een beetje teleurgesteld en had ik er meer van verwacht.
De wereld waarin het verhaal zich afspeelt is heel interessant en sfeervol, met allerlei verwijzingen naar Frankrijk en de Franse taal, maar ik miste maar ik miste echt wat verdieping of achtergrondinformatie, met name over het land en over de magie. We leren vrij weinig over de achtergrond van het conflict dat gaande is (heksen vs. jagers) en ook de magie wordt niet heel duidelijk uitgelegd.
De enemies-to-loversptrope komt de laatste tijd heel vaak terug in YA boeken. Meestal kan ik het wel waarderen, maar in dit boek kwam het omslagpunt zo... plotseling? Ik miste hier wat opbouw. Daarnaast waren er een aantal andere typische YA-tropes die het verhaal wat voorspelbaar maakten (dit is niet per se erg denk ik, maar ik had zelf meer verrassende wendingen verwacht).
Ook vraag ik me af of dit boek niet beter als roman voor volwassenen geschreven had kunnen worden. Ik kreeg het idee dat de auteur het verhaal een duister, sensueel randje wilde geven, maar dat het niet helemaal uit de verf kwam omdat het zo'n typerende YA-structuur had. Als het YA-trope-gehalte iets lager was geweest, was het boek misschien verrassender/interessanter geworden?
Ik weet ook niet of ik helemaal fan ben van de vertaling. Er wordt heel vaak z'n/m'n gebruikt in plaats van zijn/mijn, en dat stoorde me tijdens het lezen. Sommige zinnen liepen naar mijn idee ook wat onnatuurlijk, maar omdat ik het boek niet in het Engels heb gelezen weet ik niet of het aan de vertaling of het origineel ligt.
Heks & Jager is een prima YA-boek, maar niet helemaal wat ik hoopte. Ik ben ondanks dat wel benieuwd naar het vervolg. Hopelijk kan dat dit eerste boek overtreffen. ✨
De wereld waarin het verhaal zich afspeelt is heel interessant en sfeervol, met allerlei verwijzingen naar Frankrijk en de Franse taal, maar ik miste maar ik miste echt wat verdieping of achtergrondinformatie, met name over het land en over de magie. We leren vrij weinig over de achtergrond van het conflict dat gaande is (heksen vs. jagers) en ook de magie wordt niet heel duidelijk uitgelegd.
De enemies-to-loversptrope komt de laatste tijd heel vaak terug in YA boeken. Meestal kan ik het wel waarderen, maar in dit boek kwam het omslagpunt zo... plotseling? Ik miste hier wat opbouw. Daarnaast waren er een aantal andere typische YA-tropes die het verhaal wat voorspelbaar maakten (dit is niet per se erg denk ik, maar ik had zelf meer verrassende wendingen verwacht).
Ook vraag ik me af of dit boek niet beter als roman voor volwassenen geschreven had kunnen worden. Ik kreeg het idee dat de auteur het verhaal een duister, sensueel randje wilde geven, maar dat het niet helemaal uit de verf kwam omdat het zo'n typerende YA-structuur had. Als het YA-trope-gehalte iets lager was geweest, was het boek misschien verrassender/interessanter geworden?
Ik weet ook niet of ik helemaal fan ben van de vertaling. Er wordt heel vaak z'n/m'n gebruikt in plaats van zijn/mijn, en dat stoorde me tijdens het lezen. Sommige zinnen liepen naar mijn idee ook wat onnatuurlijk, maar omdat ik het boek niet in het Engels heb gelezen weet ik niet of het aan de vertaling of het origineel ligt.
Heks & Jager is een prima YA-boek, maar niet helemaal wat ik hoopte. Ik ben ondanks dat wel benieuwd naar het vervolg. Hopelijk kan dat dit eerste boek overtreffen. ✨