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

It is honestly sort of difficult to put into words my exact feelings on this book. Parts of it I liked quite a bit, while others had me physically rolling my eyes. The magic is very fun, and the lore of witches and how they connect to the earth and to each other I found compelling and interesting. But, once the conflict of the story started to come to a head, I found myself enjoying the book less and less. The villains almost become… cartoonish, in a way? It felt like the author was really trying to push home how terrible the antagonist is by just repeatedly having her state her transphobic viewpoints to the point where it was very irritating and tiresome even for me, a cisgender woman.

While there is very positive transgender, and LGBT in general, representation here, there is also rampant transphobia that I could see being very triggering to some. Also, the overuse of swearing and pop culture references took away from my immersion as well. For a book that has different characters that it switches perspectives between, I sometimes found myself having a hard time remembering who was who, with no very large differences in tone from one character to the next. Other than the antagonist, of course. The fact that she was evil was about the most obvious thing in the whole book.

I guess what disappointed me is that there wasn’t quite enough Fantasy to balance out the in-your-face politics that were constantly surfacing. I was more interested in the lore of the world, but the story seemed to stumble over itself to try and include as much political-correctness as possible that some of the characters didn’t even feel like genuine characters and more like just stereotypes being included for the sake of it, which was sad to read. Some of the language used, particularly internet-type wording and references, will likely not age well either.

I forced myself to finish this one. I was invested enough to want to do it, but I don’t know that I’ll be reaching for the sequel right away, if it all. In the end, I felt underwhelmed.

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richy_qu33r_readzz's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

Dawson writes this inside of a tERF’s mind a little too well. *shivers* some gaping holes of logic that characters skirt over which is annoying. Could be gayer.

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sfdogmom's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

fantastic book. Very well written.

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minervacerridwen's review

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dark mysterious relaxing tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I enjoyed this book in the way that I enjoy a good action movie: there were lots of exciting and tense moments, good dialogue and good visuals. This helped to make this into a quick read that made me feel a lot of emotions, if only fleetingly. If it were made into a movie, it might be one I'd love to watch: a mix of almost silly James Bond action with the old magic world many people of my generation grew up in but had to leave behind due to its issues - with a good dose of queerness and some racial awareness added in.
The metaphors, painfully relevant to our current society and the rising transphobia in the UK, were delightfully unsubtle. However, sadly, the book seemed to come with its own set of issues. I was puzzled by how a book that's rooted so firmly in the theme of inclusion apparently still views being non-binary as something weird and "difficult to get right", without that ever coming back to bite any of the characters. And then there was the ending...

Major spoiler here, in case you're someone who clicks open spoiler tags automatically: I hope it will be addressed in book 2, but I really didn't like how the "solution" was to give Helena the death penalty, for no other reason than that that was "how things were done". I'm pretty sure (or at least hope) it will have consequences for what follows in book 2, but now it seemed to be treated very lightly. The final chapters felt very rushed and more like bait to draw you into the second book than like a proper ending to the first book. The very final event, however, intrigued me enough that I will have to admit that this baiting technique probably worked on me.

Please mind the content warnings.

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helen777's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense 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

3.25

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amybfox1's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny tense fast-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

4.75

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titalindaslibrary's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad 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

3.75

Excuse me, that ending???

I feel like I need to sit with this a bit longer, but it read like Netflix’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch directly challenging JKR.

Trigger warning for transphobia, we get a POV of a TERF witch in this book. It’s very explicitly challenged and shown to be wrong, but still. I can see how triggering that could be to read.

I have some mixed feelings about some minor parts of this (

excuse me, why did Elle’s “friends” not just tell her that her husband is cheating on her?? What kind of sisterhood hides that!?

), but I think ultimately this is a welcome addition to witchy novels that address issues of our time.

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janeywaneyb's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

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

1.5

Hmmm....you can't like every book you read. The story is good but the characters...jeez! These characters are insufferable, they spend most of the book harping on about their own woeful problems which I found so hard to care about.
I think there is meant to be a feminist liberal feel to this book but it comes across as preachy and almost uneducated like reading the lefty version of the Daily Mail. I get what the author is trying to do and there is a good try at discussing the social issues especially around transphobia, which is handled well, but having so many issues trying to have space in a book made it clunky and awkward.
There are paragraphs of moaning self-reflection from every character as they obsess over then men in their lives, their childhoods and the "greater good". The references to the 90's pop culture also wears thin. I stuck with it as the actual story was good and when they start being kick-ass witches I was all for it. I don't think I'll be heading for the next book any time soon.

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