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kgareis 's review for:
The Bitterwine Oath
by Hannah West
Smack dab in the middle of the road with this one. Don't get me wrong - I liked it - I loved the small town vibe and all the diversity and southern style of "we'll cut you with a smile on our face after offering you sweet tea" if you tread on our urban legend. Levi wasn't the best love interest (what's with all the gingers in YA fiction these days anyway?) but the hidden history of the Wardens, Natalie's ancestors and her abilities, and the plot twists kept things interesting. I love magic, I love witches (Salem traditional or otherwise matters not), and I love figuring out the riddles that associate themselves with those magical traditions so that was all gravy. What didn't work for me, and this is just me, it moved too fast. I wanted more terror, more uncertainty, more mystery surrounding the "coven", more struggle figuring out how to stop the bad guys that were super creepy but I wanted them even creepier. Nat learned too fast and was too good too soon, plus not leaving room for a sequel or series, so things wrapped up almost too neatly in 300-ish pages, so not enough time for real serious suspense.