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alexgo 's review for:
The Once and Future Witches
by Alix E. Harrow
This book has some mild reviews, but I have to say the characters were easy to get to know and magnetic to follow. The tropes of maiden, mother, and crone were shifted and twisted by gentle nods at asexuality/aromantic orientation, lust and complicated love-seeking of single motherhood, and boundary-defying queerness. These characters are anything but flat, and Alix maintained the language of the era (flowery and “colored”) while remembering that trans people have always existed, and we were witches, too. Alix attends to divisions between privileged white suffragettes and their further marginalized sisters- Black and Indigenous women of color, and allows characters to reject the narrative that women’s rights is one battle to fight, reminding us that BIPOC always have it harder. I loved this book and I found the ending as satisfying as a choice between two bad options can be. The wild and reckless maiden chose her love for others over herself, the isolated and self-sufficient mother grew her family in every direction, and the crone began living her life with a brave vitality that quickens the heart.