A review by thepaperbackplanner
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Honesty time: I’ll admit I wasn’t in love with this novel at the start, but I’m happy to report that it did grow on me chapter by chapter. From the first page, I was intrigued by the story and the relationship between the three main characters, sisters separated by time and circumstances who are brought back together to fight for magic and women’s rights (and, like, kinda all civil rights a little bit). But — spoiler alert, seriously —

one of the sisters discovers she’s pregnant, and while it’s important to the story to have someone be a mother, it becomes nearly this character’s entire personality. Like, a “she opened the door pregnantly” kind of situation that I did not love.

Now, look. I recognize that my issue with this might be totally personal, but I wanted to call it out to basically say your mileage may vary here. Either way, eventually, either it toned down or I got used to it and was able to enjoy the book quite a bit more. Something I really loved about this book was how full it was, like, seriously, SO much happened. I came away with a feeling I think is rare in sci-fi or fantasy for me, which is that I read the whole story in one book and don’t need a sequel. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me to see if there was going to be a sequel until this moment I’m writing this. Per a tweet from 2020, it’s currently a standalone, which I think is neat!