Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - The Book of Gothel

What a fantastic retelling. Takes the well-known story and turns it on its head, shattering expectations. I love a book with a good framing narrative, and this was no exception.

Content Warnings

apolloann's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

onceuponabookcase's review against another edition

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slow-paced

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

1.0

I was sent this proof for free by Orbit Books for the purposes of providing an honest review.

I'd been super excited to read The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne ever since I first heard of it. An historical fantasy prequel retelling of the story of Rapunzel from the perspective of the witch, it was right up my street. However, I finished it feeling really disappointed.

Set in Medieval Germany, the story follows Haelewise, a young girl who has fainting spells, brought up by a mother who secretly keeps to the old ways. I was expecting either a villain origin story, or for a story that completely turns the tale of Rapunzel on it's head. And while to some degree it does do that, the story actually has very little to do with Rapunzel, or what we know of that story. There's a tower, there's a woman who practices magic, and there's a baby girl named Rapunzel in the last fifth of the book, but that's it. I did start off enjoying the book. I loved the Medieval setting, the feminist aspect to how women are viewed, and the patriarchal and controlling church. The old ways, magic from nature, wise women and wort cunning, and goddess worship. It felt like a story that was going to be everything I could want. But it wasn't.

The Book of Gothel is an extremely slow story. Haelewise moves from place to place, and each time you think that's when the story will finally get going, but you just get quite a lot of nothing really happening. She spends time at the tower learning very little from the wise woman in the tower, to seeking assistance from Hildegard, to time amongst royals, to the anticlimactic ending. At each place, there's a lot of not doing very much, and a lot of waiting around. It really dragged, and I lost interest. There wasn't a great deal of magic or action, and the only reason I kept reading was to see how it would relate to Rapunzel, but there's so little. Honestly, you could read this book not knowing it was a retelling. The whole Rapunzel aspect could have been removed. The tower could have been a cottage, the child could have been named something else, they're pretty much the only links to the original story, and as such "a Rapunzel retelling" is actually pretty misleading.

I really don't have any more to say. I think there are certain Christian people who might find aspects of this story somewhat controversial, unrelated to the patriarchal and superstitious aspects. I'm an atheist, and I gasped, because it's so bold. It actually made me cackle, the idea of how overzealous Christians might react to it. Also, I only found out after finishing the story that it features an actual historical figure in Hildegard on Bingen, but I don't think it matters either way, it doesn't really make a difference to the story.

I was extremely disappointed with The Book of Gothel due to being very slow, not much happening, and very little relation to Rapunzel. But maybe if you're a fan of historical fiction, and don't mind slow burn stories, this might be something you'd enjoy.

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