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l_e_lavalle's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Graphic: Homophobia, Physical abuse, Self harm, Pregnancy, Medical content, Abortion, Blood, Death, and Suicide
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Body horror, Grief, and Outing
Minor: Child death and Kidnapping
third_bookworm's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Lesbophobia, Pregnancy, Kidnapping, Torture, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Violence, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, and Alcoholism
Minor: Classism, Outing, and Slavery
carriepond's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Set in an alternate version of 1893, The Once and Future Witches follows the three Eastwood sisters: Beatrice Belladona, Agnes Amaranth, and James Juniper. At the beginning of the novel, after being estranged for years, the sisters have separately made their way to the fictional town of New Salem, Massachusetts, a place where magic is a thing of the past after the witch burnings decades earlier in the town now known as Old Salem. When Bella feels inexplicably drawn to utter the words of a spell during a women's suffrage rally, the three sisters are reunited and a magical tower rises in the square, setting off a series of events that lead them to rally their fellow women to bring witching back to Salem. Their magical antics get the group increasingly more attention, including the attention of a sinister member of the New Salem city council eager to use the threat of powerful, witchy women as a way to propel his own rise to power.
I really enjoyed this one. Harrow is able to take so many historical references and mash them up in a fantastical way that is entertaining, smart, and unique. I am a big fan of what I will dub feminist historical novels, with characters with more modern sensibilities that don't let the historical setting force one-dimensional stories that we've already seen a thousand times. The pacing at the beginning of this was a little slow and the suffragette thread wasn't really carried all the way through, but those minor flaws didn't really lessen my enjoyment of this novel, which has so many threads and storylines that Harrow carries beautifully through to the end.
The Once and Future Witches is ultimately about how powerful women can be when we are in community with one another. I appreciated that Harrow's heroines included a diverse mix of women, which made the power-in-community theme resonate all the more. I also really liked the use of storytelling and that the ways that women passed down magical knowledge were as diverse as the different groups of women featured in the novel.
If you like books with secret societies, witches and magic, read this book. If you like historical novels with a fantasy or feminist twist, read this book. Alix Harrow is an author I am really growing to love.
Graphic: Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Pregnancy, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Torture
Minor: Animal death
therainbowshelf's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Torture, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Confinement, Murder, Grief, Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Racism, Classism, Sexism, Xenophobia, Sexual harassment, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Violence, Death, Death of parent, and Misogyny
Moderate: Transphobia, Miscarriage, and Abortion
Government sanctioned removal of children from target group of peoplecassiopeia_lucky_fowkes's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
You end up falling in love with the characters like they are you own Sisters (note the capital S)
Only read if you are okay with crying for ten minutes at various parts of the book (this happened to me both times I read it!)
It has an amazing plot with lots of plot twists that grip and pull you into the story and dont let you go until its done
I wish this book had a sequal!
Also the writing style is amazing, there is the perfect amount of description to allow you to imagine sort of the more fine details in how a character looks for example but also gives you a good base
the settings are also described in this way
I cant tell you how much I love this book tbh it changed the way I look at everything and changed my life too!
I highly recommend to any feminist out there.
Let the fire inside your heart continue to burn and let this book help it to burn brighter with fury, love, hate and hope.
Graphic: Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Abortion, Cursing, Alcohol, Death, Toxic friendship, Blood, Pregnancy, Body shaming, Lesbophobia, Police brutality, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Murder, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Medical content, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia
I put all the content warnings in graphic because i dont have time to sort them! Also some are so minor they are only one sentence or wordsol84's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Death of parent and Death
Moderate: Physical abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Violence
kimmag92's review against another edition
- 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
3.0
Though I greatly enjoyed the premise of the book I found Harrow’s execution to not be great. The explanation of the world was muddled and unclear and so was the magic system. Also, each chapter is told from a different sisters perspective. How she did this was quite clunky as instead of each chapter having a heading of the sisters name, like many multi POV books do, she started the first sentence of each chapter with the sisters name. It felt rudimentary.
Minor: Violence, Torture, and Physical abuse
justmys's review against another edition
- 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
4.75
The book touches upon a myriad of different cultures and lives, exploring their differences and similarities and finding what joins us together in the face of a fight that needs to be won.
You can feel the fire in these pages, it's so beautifully written and feels rooted in history, despite the fiction and magic. It weaves between the marginalised and the long suffering, bringing in LGBTQ+ topics, race inequality, social standing and sex, and it does so with such genuine care and love it's beautiful to read.
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and Sexism
beth_dieroff's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Minor: Racism, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Homophobia, Violence, Death, Torture, Abortion, Sexism, and Transphobia
schnaucl's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
It's a book that's full of women's rage and the subtle ways they have to hide their power to pass things down through the generations and the never ending cycle of women gaining a measure of power only to have it nearly all taken from them. But still they endure.
I appreciated the effort to bring in words and ways from other cultures, both contemporary and historical, and the focus on the fact that progress will eventually cause a reactionary backlash which will fall hardest on the most marginalized.
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Death, Grief, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Death of parent, Police brutality, and Violence
Minor: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Physical abuse, Torture, and Abortion