A review by accovino
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

medium-paced

3.0

I enjoyed a lot of the ideas in this, but there were just too many places it bugged. I'm sick of reading about Salem, I'm bored by "what if [Historical Figure] but GENDER SWAPPED" and "what if [Historical Figure] but SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT NAME" and
the expendable character being the one who didn't fall in love
and the badass Black *supporting* character… Also it took me way too long to get into it, and WAY too long to remember who was who. I like that the tower is
a library
. I like that there is a trans character, minor though she is. I like that there is at least a mention of White women's history of one-sided "solidarity" and magic hidden in the open simply because women's work is never taken seriously. I just... I feel like someone needed to come in hard with the red pen and whip this into shape. I feel like "set in our world so I don't have to explain everything, but also everything is different" is a cop-out and a really irritating one for some reason? But mostly I just.. I really wanted to like this more than I did.
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