A review by minervacerridwen
Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

dark mysterious relaxing tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I enjoyed this book in the way that I enjoy a good action movie: there were lots of exciting and tense moments, good dialogue and good visuals. This helped to make this into a quick read that made me feel a lot of emotions, if only fleetingly. If it were made into a movie, it might be one I'd love to watch: a mix of almost silly James Bond action with the old magic world many people of my generation grew up in but had to leave behind due to its issues - with a good dose of queerness and some racial awareness added in.
The metaphors, painfully relevant to our current society and the rising transphobia in the UK, were delightfully unsubtle. However, sadly, the book seemed to come with its own set of issues. I was puzzled by how a book that's rooted so firmly in the theme of inclusion apparently still views being non-binary as something weird and "difficult to get right", without that ever coming back to bite any of the characters. And then there was the ending...
Major spoiler here, in case you're someone who clicks open spoiler tags automatically: I hope it will be addressed in book 2, but I really didn't like how the "solution" was to give Helena the death penalty, for no other reason than that that was "how things were done". I'm pretty sure (or at least hope) it will have consequences for what follows in book 2, but now it seemed to be treated very lightly. The final chapters felt very rushed and more like bait to draw you into the second book than like a proper ending to the first book. The very final event, however, intrigued me enough that I will have to admit that this baiting technique probably worked on me.

Please mind the content warnings.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings