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A review by alicerowano
Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I was really excited to read this book but it turned out to be completely different from what I was expecting. From reading the blurb and the first couple of pages before I bought it I thought it was a pop culture inspired fantasy novel about a modern day secret government department of witches, but it was actually very different.
Spoilers below
I really liked several things about this book. I loved many of the characters, especially Niamh and Elle. I loved Theo’s bond with Holly and Niamh. I liked the Luke/Niamh storyline I also did enjoy the plot up until about half way through. But there were several things that really bothered me:
1. The prose. It read very childishly, like a YA - but was clearly written for adults? There was a lot of slang/internet catchphrases/pop culture references and it felt like too much. There was a lot of telling instead of showing, a lot of explaining very simple concepts and objects (for example one of the characters explains what a going-out bag is. Like it’s not self explanatory.).
2. Helena became a pantomime villain half way through. It wasn’t convincing, and really ruined the second half of the book for me.
3. I liked the trans representation and the concept, but I thought the way the topic was explored was reductive in many ways. The only two positions presented are: A. Fully accepting ally who readily and easily says all the right things and uses the right pronouns straight away and B. Maniacal bloodthirsty TERF. The reality is that there is a spectrum of acceptance that people fall along, not just these two positions, and reducing it to a binary just made it feel very unrealistic and flat to me. Obviously ideally everyone would be accepting and know exactly what to do/say straight away, but that’s not real life and that lack of nuance really took away from the story for me and made it read like someone trying to make a point through the characters.
4. The ending made me very angry. Will be googling what happens in the second book but I don’t know if I’ll actually read it.
Spoilers below
I really liked several things about this book. I loved many of the characters, especially Niamh and Elle. I loved Theo’s bond with Holly and Niamh. I liked the Luke/Niamh storyline I also did enjoy the plot up until about half way through. But there were several things that really bothered me:
1. The prose. It read very childishly, like a YA - but was clearly written for adults? There was a lot of slang/internet catchphrases/pop culture references and it felt like too much. There was a lot of telling instead of showing, a lot of explaining very simple concepts and objects (for example one of the characters explains what a going-out bag is. Like it’s not self explanatory.).
2. Helena became a pantomime villain half way through. It wasn’t convincing, and really ruined the second half of the book for me.
3. I liked the trans representation and the concept, but I thought the way the topic was explored was reductive in many ways. The only two positions presented are: A. Fully accepting ally who readily and easily says all the right things and uses the right pronouns straight away and B. Maniacal bloodthirsty TERF. The reality is that there is a spectrum of acceptance that people fall along, not just these two positions, and reducing it to a binary just made it feel very unrealistic and flat to me. Obviously ideally everyone would be accepting and know exactly what to do/say straight away, but that’s not real life and that lack of nuance really took away from the story for me and made it read like someone trying to make a point through the characters.
4. The ending made me very angry. Will be googling what happens in the second book but I don’t know if I’ll actually read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder and Transphobia