A review by katyanaish
Practically Wicked by Alissa Johnson

5.0

I loved this book. Honestly, just loved it. I cried at multiple points, which... honestly has become unusual for me with HR. I think they generally seem too formulaic to move me like that.

Anna was just ... so tremendously alone.

Spoiler

I sobbed, quite literally, when she said goodbye to her only friend, Mrs. Culpepper.

And if I were to quibble, I wish this book had spent more time growing her relationship with the Haverstons. I understand why we didn't get much time there - the book would have been mammoth - but Anna ... she was so alone, and I was so desperate for her to discover the love of a family, something she has missed her entire life. I just wanted ... I don't know. More than the little nods to their relationships slowly creeping forward. I wanted a concerned-yet-proud brother in the room after she saved the child from drowning. A deep anger that Max was being inappropriate. I wanted to feel them straining to take care of her. She deserved that.

And I wanted them to truly understand how much she was afraid of ... tainting them. Hurting them, just by being present.

These are little beats that we never got, and I feel we should have.

That's not to say I didn't care for Max - I did. Even though I found him to be ... tremendously arrogant - his privileged views of the demimonde, and his resistance to seeing it from her standpoint, really did hurt - he did care for Anna. He just did it in a very arrogant way, as if he knows best regarding everything. I think that's also why I wish there was some family presence - one of her brothers needed to shake some sense into him.

Spoiler

Max did have a shift in perspective at the very end. Like, in the last 8 pages. But it was like a lightning bolt, it happened so suddenly.

I feel like... this book probably should have been longer. A little more development of this shift would have been awesome.

Another quibble is Madame.

Spoiler

I don't even know if I can call what happened a wrap up. The attack on Max was very sudden, and out of left field. But it was even more odd that that was the end of it. We get an offhand comment that she's moved to Norway, but ... given that she loomed large in this book - even when she wasn't present, she was discussed almost constantly, as we unwrapped what Anna's life had been like in Anover House - it just wasn't enough to be an emotionally satisfying conclusion of Anna's arc with her mother.

I'm still giving it 4.5 stars though. I have to acknowledge and respect a book that moves me to tears at several points. So despite the quibbles, it's well worth a read.