Review by haileyhardcover - The Honey Witch

haileyhardcover 's review for:

The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields

2.0

adventurous dark emotional lighthearted relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I fully expected to love this book… what a letdown. I think I was really misled by the TikToks… When I saw “a witch cursed so no one can love her meets a tattoo artist who doesn’t believe in magic,” I was expecting a modern story… not this.

The biggest issue for me is that the world that’s created in this book doesn’t make any sense. It’s 1831, sort of England…? Like Bridgerton, except in this version of reality, homosexuality is just blankety accepted by all. That’s cool! If only that were the world we lived in… but for whatever reason, all other rules of “society” remain? It’s absurd for a man and his female friends to share a room, but two women sharing a room with only one bed, in a world where homosexuality is an accepted norm, is totally fine? Why is it only a scandal for opposite sex pairs? Oh, and having a tattoo is a punishable CRIME? Idk. It didn’t make sense. There was also no reason for this story to need to take place in the 1800’s other than capitalizing off of the popularity of Bridgerton.

Beyond the world not making sense, I’m sorry to say that it was just dull and disappointing. I think it actually would’ve been better if the romance was taken out of it and it was just a fantasy about rival witches… BUT, honey and ash being opposites also made no sense so… 🤷🏻‍♀️

Where the first half (or three quarters) of the book had so many unnecessary details (including the ENTIRE tattoo thing? Literally no point.) the ending was so rushed. What could’ve been a massive twist, you see coming from MILES away and then we get rushed through to the end with complete disregard for the other character’s storyline - we could’ve had more family relationship details, magic development, scheming, agony, ANYTHING, but no… rushed fluff.

Finally, don’t come here for spice. You get one scene that is lukewarm at best and it ends in such a horrifying way that it ruins any bit of revving up you may have experienced. Jesus Christ was a buzz kill.

I don’t recommend The Honey Witch. It does have one of the more beautiful covers that I’ve ever seen, though. It also had short chapters. Two stars for that!

Content Warnings