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venusfawn 's review for:
Wild is the Witch
by Rachel Griffin
alternate title for this book: iris gray is the worst.
and not only is she the worst, she gets away with being the worst.
iris moans incessantly about how much she loves her magic, how it’s the thing she loves most in the world and how devastating losing it would be. we’re regularly reminded of how her bestie lost her magic when she tried turning her boyfriend into a mage and it killed him. we never once see an interaction between iris and her friend amy; nor do we ever meet iris’s dad, who also gave her trauma! by refusing to move with her and her mom. so ultimately, i don’t care much about iris’s sad life because it’s entirely tell and no show. but more importantly, despite all these dire warnings about losing one’s magic, iris casually creates a dangerous curse for pike because boo hoo, he said something mean.
it doesn’t matter that iris didn’t intend to *really* use the curse; why would anyone with more than half a functioning brain cell even take the risk? and then of course the curse is bound to an owl, one who happens to be an amplifier of magic because…why not, who flies away with it. only now does iris think, “shit, maybe this was a bad idea??”
so iris and pike go tramping through the woods and at one point amid all the shenanigans, they stumble across a bear injured with magical burns. iris of course has continued to hide the fact that she’s a witch from pike, so he has no idea she’s using magic to assist her when she runs. from a bear. the bear of course proceeds to chase her and pike panics, running the risk of getting himself mauled trying to save iris and her stupid ass. and only after the bear is gone and pike is in a panic does iris think, “oh, i guess i really scared him. he really thought i would get hurt.”
damn iris, that lone brain cell really put in some overtime that day, huh?
on this quest iris also learns about pike and his animosity toward witches; which is a super sad story that makes her feel sick about cursing him. which could’ve been avoided entirely if iris could remember for five minutes that she’s not the center of the known universe and had considered that perhaps pike had his reasons for distrusting witches. but instead she fashioned a curse to make him a witch (or mage, whatever). you know, the exact thing that her friend accidentally *burned her boyfriend alive* trying to do.
so finally they find the dying owl, and iris is forced to come clean about everything. and in the end she has to bind the curse to pike to remove it from the owl before it decimates the whole region and kills people. and the only punishment iris receives is 60 hours of witchy community service and she’s not allowed to do her “spells i won’t use” shit anymore. no trial, no loss of magic, not even any real reprimand. in fact her community service is being pike’s teacher. wow, that’ll really teach her. and why does she get off so easy? because she got some ouchies trying to keep pike from becoming a human torch. yep. the powerful witch’s council decided that because she “tried to save pike’s life,” she shouldn’t be “too hard on herself.”
i guess we’ll just ignore that pike’s life was only in danger to start with because of her. we’ll ignore that countless other lives were in danger because of her. it’s fine, she really did nothing wrong because no one *technically* got hurt by her petty revenge curse. and of course, pike forgives her because when he was little, he thought magic was cool and for some stupid reason, he thinks iris is “remarkable.” i suppose that’s a fair assessment though, in that it’s remarkable how moronic she is.
iris should’ve lost her magic and been dumped. that would’ve been the real happy ending here. oh, and the poor owl couldn’t even rest in peace after his demise. no, because he’d been bound to a curse his little owl spirit will now forever haunt the animal refuge. even he couldn’t escape from the disaster that is iris gray and her single brain cell.
and not only is she the worst, she gets away with being the worst.
iris moans incessantly about how much she loves her magic, how it’s the thing she loves most in the world and how devastating losing it would be. we’re regularly reminded of how her bestie lost her magic when she tried turning her boyfriend into a mage and it killed him. we never once see an interaction between iris and her friend amy; nor do we ever meet iris’s dad, who also gave her trauma! by refusing to move with her and her mom. so ultimately, i don’t care much about iris’s sad life because it’s entirely tell and no show. but more importantly, despite all these dire warnings about losing one’s magic, iris casually creates a dangerous curse for pike because boo hoo, he said something mean.
it doesn’t matter that iris didn’t intend to *really* use the curse; why would anyone with more than half a functioning brain cell even take the risk? and then of course the curse is bound to an owl, one who happens to be an amplifier of magic because…why not, who flies away with it. only now does iris think, “shit, maybe this was a bad idea??”
so iris and pike go tramping through the woods and at one point amid all the shenanigans, they stumble across a bear injured with magical burns. iris of course has continued to hide the fact that she’s a witch from pike, so he has no idea she’s using magic to assist her when she runs. from a bear. the bear of course proceeds to chase her and pike panics, running the risk of getting himself mauled trying to save iris and her stupid ass. and only after the bear is gone and pike is in a panic does iris think, “oh, i guess i really scared him. he really thought i would get hurt.”
damn iris, that lone brain cell really put in some overtime that day, huh?
on this quest iris also learns about pike and his animosity toward witches; which is a super sad story that makes her feel sick about cursing him. which could’ve been avoided entirely if iris could remember for five minutes that she’s not the center of the known universe and had considered that perhaps pike had his reasons for distrusting witches. but instead she fashioned a curse to make him a witch (or mage, whatever). you know, the exact thing that her friend accidentally *burned her boyfriend alive* trying to do.
so finally they find the dying owl, and iris is forced to come clean about everything. and in the end she has to bind the curse to pike to remove it from the owl before it decimates the whole region and kills people. and the only punishment iris receives is 60 hours of witchy community service and she’s not allowed to do her “spells i won’t use” shit anymore. no trial, no loss of magic, not even any real reprimand. in fact her community service is being pike’s teacher. wow, that’ll really teach her. and why does she get off so easy? because she got some ouchies trying to keep pike from becoming a human torch. yep. the powerful witch’s council decided that because she “tried to save pike’s life,” she shouldn’t be “too hard on herself.”
i guess we’ll just ignore that pike’s life was only in danger to start with because of her. we’ll ignore that countless other lives were in danger because of her. it’s fine, she really did nothing wrong because no one *technically* got hurt by her petty revenge curse. and of course, pike forgives her because when he was little, he thought magic was cool and for some stupid reason, he thinks iris is “remarkable.” i suppose that’s a fair assessment though, in that it’s remarkable how moronic she is.
iris should’ve lost her magic and been dumped. that would’ve been the real happy ending here. oh, and the poor owl couldn’t even rest in peace after his demise. no, because he’d been bound to a curse his little owl spirit will now forever haunt the animal refuge. even he couldn’t escape from the disaster that is iris gray and her single brain cell.