Review by peonyreading - The Bewitching

peonyreading 's review for:

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

2.5

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

When this novel was good, it was good. I liked how it tried to write witches and witchcraft, and the mystery was good (but not great). However, it was only good 30% of the time, and 20% of that was the last 20% of the novel. It was good for a little bit starting at the first 1934 chapter (which was already 60-ish pages/20% of the way in), and then got good again from the 11th 1908 chapter to the end. And outside of that, this novel was SO boring. I definitely only finished it because it was a book club read, otherwise I probably would have dropped it once it started to get boring again. I was waiting SO LONG for it to get good again, and while it had some moments (and very few true horror moments), it was overall just very boring. The writing felt like it went in circles most of the time, and seemed more concerned with setting the scene as opposed to actually progressing the plot/character growth (I ended up not really liking or getting attached to any of the characters in the novel).

Combine that with the yucky Alba/Arturo relationship, and the ending?

It made sense why Alba did everything the way she did, but the author didn't even need to write it that way to begin with - it could have been a jealous childhood friend, or even just an estranged relative motivated by money WITHOUT any of the incest, and the witch could have been killed in a more normal manner (like in Minerva's case) and it would have been completely fine! I'm left wondering if the incest was supposed to be the true horror of the novel? In addition, Minerva's ending and epilogue rubbed me the wrong way, we had very little to lead us onto Minerva's abilities in the beginning of the novel, abilities that she didn't know she had(?), and yet by the end of the novel she's an expert at seeing ghosts and can summon her dead cat at will? It just seemed a bit too convenient.

Due to the fact that it was just such a boring read, as well as the above issues I have with the ending, I have to give this a 2.5/5.

Content Warnings