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ruthiels 's review for:
A Discovery of Witches
by Deborah Harkness
This book started at five stars for me and lost a star every two hundred pages.
We open in a *chef’s kiss* perfect slice of dark academia. Diana Bishop is a professor and historian of science perusing alchemical texts when she calls upon an elusive book from the Oxford stacks that is full to the brim with dark magic. As a witch, Diana senses its power immediately—and decides she wants nothing to do with it. Magic has burned her before and she’s sworn off engaging with it if she can help it. Of course, a text so powerful starts to draw the attention of other witches, vampires and daemons, including a hot vampire and fellow professor, Dr. Matthew Clairmont.
Some things that make sense at first that fall very quickly into a tangled mess: the forbidden text, the magic system, Matthew Clairmont as a redeeming character, the academic Oxford backdrop, SCIENCE, and the characters’ familial histories.
Holy smokes. At first, the book sets up a lot of constancies that are easy to wrap your mind around. The introduction of the three species and how their individual powers manifest makes sense because it’s relatively simple. Once you get the family trees mapped out in your head, understanding the Clairmonts and Bishops seems to be manageable too. Diana is described as human in all ways but physical; Matthew is likened to a wolf.
THEN—things take a sharp left turn. Diana ends up being a HUGE Mary Sue, despite her inability to tap into her powers for nearly the entire book. There’s extensive and invasive detail about her genetics that takes a frightening amount of agency of her own body away from her. This, coupled with Matthew’s deeply problematic treatment of Diana (even more troubling than Edward with Bella, if you could imagine!) really gave me the ick.
That said, A Discovery of Witches and its many, many pages aren’t hard to read. The writing style is smooth and easily consumed like a glass of water down the throat, even when those later chapters start to feel like a fever dream. All in all, I think I might need a break before I think about the second book.
We open in a *chef’s kiss* perfect slice of dark academia. Diana Bishop is a professor and historian of science perusing alchemical texts when she calls upon an elusive book from the Oxford stacks that is full to the brim with dark magic. As a witch, Diana senses its power immediately—and decides she wants nothing to do with it. Magic has burned her before and she’s sworn off engaging with it if she can help it. Of course, a text so powerful starts to draw the attention of other witches, vampires and daemons, including a hot vampire and fellow professor, Dr. Matthew Clairmont.
Some things that make sense at first that fall very quickly into a tangled mess: the forbidden text, the magic system, Matthew Clairmont as a redeeming character, the academic Oxford backdrop, SCIENCE, and the characters’ familial histories.
Holy smokes. At first, the book sets up a lot of constancies that are easy to wrap your mind around. The introduction of the three species and how their individual powers manifest makes sense because it’s relatively simple. Once you get the family trees mapped out in your head, understanding the Clairmonts and Bishops seems to be manageable too. Diana is described as human in all ways but physical; Matthew is likened to a wolf.
THEN—things take a sharp left turn. Diana ends up being a HUGE Mary Sue, despite her inability to tap into her powers for nearly the entire book. There’s extensive and invasive detail about her genetics that takes a frightening amount of agency of her own body away from her. This, coupled with Matthew’s deeply problematic treatment of Diana (even more troubling than Edward with Bella, if you could imagine!) really gave me the ick.
That said, A Discovery of Witches and its many, many pages aren’t hard to read. The writing style is smooth and easily consumed like a glass of water down the throat, even when those later chapters start to feel like a fever dream. All in all, I think I might need a break before I think about the second book.