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A review by bookdnbusy
The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
I would foremost like to thank NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC.
I'd high hopes for this book, since the catch line is "... a sapphic Rapunzel retelling with vampires and witches!" But once I began reading it, it took me a while to actually get into it.
This doesn't read as YA (to me), it reads way more like middle grade. I wanted to love this book. The world building could use major work. As a reader, I didn't quite grasp the magic system, or how exactly did they acquire their powers, or even how the magic works. There's a lot of telling and not a lot of showing, which is imperative when it comes to fantasy novels. It wasn't until I was 220 pages into the book that some semblance of the magic system and world building happened when the book only has 303 pages.
The story is told in two points of view, our heroine Ava's and her friend turned enemy turned friend turned lover, Kaye, and if there wasn't an identifier at the beginning of each change of POV, I wouldn't have noticed I was reading a different POV until the dialogue commenced, since they both read exceptionally similar. The phrases they each use in their POV are written word for word, same with minor changes throughout.
Flores did a great job building the character's stories, but the rest of the world around them almost felt like an afterthought.
The last few chapters of this book were honestly the saving grace and the reason I'm giving it 3 stars instead of 2.
I'd high hopes for this book, since the catch line is "... a sapphic Rapunzel retelling with vampires and witches!" But once I began reading it, it took me a while to actually get into it.
This doesn't read as YA (to me), it reads way more like middle grade. I wanted to love this book. The world building could use major work. As a reader, I didn't quite grasp the magic system, or how exactly did they acquire their powers, or even how the magic works. There's a lot of telling and not a lot of showing, which is imperative when it comes to fantasy novels. It wasn't until I was 220 pages into the book that some semblance of the magic system and world building happened when the book only has 303 pages.
The story is told in two points of view, our heroine Ava's and her friend turned enemy turned friend turned lover, Kaye, and if there wasn't an identifier at the beginning of each change of POV, I wouldn't have noticed I was reading a different POV until the dialogue commenced, since they both read exceptionally similar. The phrases they each use in their POV are written word for word, same with minor changes throughout.
Flores did a great job building the character's stories, but the rest of the world around them almost felt like an afterthought.
The last few chapters of this book were honestly the saving grace and the reason I'm giving it 3 stars instead of 2.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death and Torture
Minor: Murder