britania 's review for:

Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven by Bella Forrest

1.0

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I’m 2/3rd of the way done but felt the need to write this review to warn others about this book. It was advertised to me through FB as “if you like Harry Potter, you’ll love this one!” But the poor writing and unbelievable plot make the book almost unbearable. The author paints the main character as a foster kid and every 5 pages feels the need to remind the reader of this circumstance. I am 100% confident this author knows nothing about children who are in the foster care system OR anything about people of color. The Hispanic character in her introduction to the reader has the same name as the town she’s from in Mexico and uses two spanish words as if to prove she’s really a Hispanic person. Then for the rest of the book (as far as I read)she uses no other spanish. The main character loves to antagonize other people and comes off as unlikable and annoying to me. This gives me “American Dirt” vibes...white author tried to write from an underprivileged point of view and failed miserably. I feel like she read two Wikipedia articles: one on the foster care system and one on “magic” in other cultures and tried to put it in her book. I could go on but hopefully that’s enough to convince you that it’s not worth the time to start this book. Go back and reread HP1 and it will be a much better use of your time.