A review by ldillaway
VenCo by Cherie Dimaline

2.0

There are a number of things about this book that didn’t really work for me. First, I think in general this urban somewhat cozy fantasy genre just isn’t really for me, I just don’t find it compelling. There were some character moments I enjoyed — I liked seeing how all the witches found their spoons and the main character had a fun dynamic with her grandmother — but overall the dialogue and character work felt shallow. This whole book is also a quest to bring a coven of witches together but it’s never really explained why that matters so it felt pretty low stakes. Lastly, the villain’s main course of action is just to brainwash random women he meets into having sex with him and it was both gross and misplaced tonally with the rest of the book.