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A review by kylosten
The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
I really wanted to love this book because the premise of cozy sapphic witches was such a cool idea to me but the execution of this just fell flat in a lot of ways.
It's clear this was a debut novel.
A majority of the first half was written in vignettes where it peeked in on Marigold's life around the full moon but about a third of those didn't really add anything to the story they just felt like flavor text to add vibes and give details that didn't really matter/were slice of life type scenes. It just made everything feel drawn out and added to the slow pacing. I'm surprised a lot of those didn't get edited out to make this more or a novella length book.
The romance aspect of this didn't really start until almost halfway through and it didn't really feel natural at all.
None of the characters had any real dimension and there wasn't any real motivations to any of what they were doing.
The worldbuilding was pretty non existent and the magic system wasn't really fleshed out. Mari was a honey witch but also randomly had other powers that didn't seem connected to the honey magic and she seemed to somehow just innately know what to do sometimes and other times have to research it.
There's an aspect about tattoos on women being an offense that could lead to a fine but never really explained why. Given that the L.I. is a heavily tattooed woman and there is a scene where that matters, I think it should have been explained.
The conclusion of the story was very heavily foreshadowed pretty early on once the interactions with the L.I. started happening so I think that added to this feeling like it was way too long.
This basically felt like the author had a handful of scenes and dialogue and they wanted to put into a book and then added the rest around it but didn't execute it well. The pacing was weird and a lot of details given didn't really add anything.
If I hadn't been listening to the audiobook I may have just DNF'd it. The narrator was great!
I will say that since queerness seems accepted in this world it seemed like magic was used as kind of a euphemism for how queerness is viewed in the real world. Some people didn't accept it as real/an innate part of people, it caused Mari to feel unaccepted and "othered" at times, and some characters needed time to come around to the idea that it was part of her and who she was. I do think that aspect was done well.
It's clear this was a debut novel.
A majority of the first half was written in vignettes where it peeked in on Marigold's life around the full moon but about a third of those didn't really add anything to the story they just felt like flavor text to add vibes and give details that didn't really matter/were slice of life type scenes. It just made everything feel drawn out and added to the slow pacing. I'm surprised a lot of those didn't get edited out to make this more or a novella length book.
The romance aspect of this didn't really start until almost halfway through and it didn't really feel natural at all.
None of the characters had any real dimension and there wasn't any real motivations to any of what they were doing.
The worldbuilding was pretty non existent and the magic system wasn't really fleshed out. Mari was a honey witch but also randomly had other powers that didn't seem connected to the honey magic and she seemed to somehow just innately know what to do sometimes and other times have to research it.
There's an aspect about tattoos on women being an offense that could lead to a fine but never really explained why. Given that the L.I. is a heavily tattooed woman and there is a scene where that matters, I think it should have been explained.
The conclusion of the story was very heavily foreshadowed pretty early on once the interactions with the L.I. started happening so I think that added to this feeling like it was way too long.
This basically felt like the author had a handful of scenes and dialogue and they wanted to put into a book and then added the rest around it but didn't execute it well. The pacing was weird and a lot of details given didn't really add anything.
If I hadn't been listening to the audiobook I may have just DNF'd it. The narrator was great!
I will say that since queerness seems accepted in this world it seemed like magic was used as kind of a euphemism for how queerness is viewed in the real world. Some people didn't accept it as real/an innate part of people, it caused Mari to feel unaccepted and "othered" at times, and some characters needed time to come around to the idea that it was part of her and who she was. I do think that aspect was done well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Miscarriage