A review by piperclover
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

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

2.5

I'm so torn on this. On one hand I love the mystery around the manuscript, the magic system, the convent, and all of that stuff. On the other hand I despise Matthew as a love interest. He could be the villain, he could be the best friend, he could just be a random vampire that they dragged in to all this, but I cannot stand him as a love interest.  His character has some flashes of being interesting but by-and-large hes just a controlling, obnoxious Edward Cullen era vampire love interest. 

And that's my biggest gripe with this book that it feels like a mix of National Treasure and the bad parts of Twilight.  You can clearly see that this was written post twilight boom. I just hate this stupid relationship so much but I'm so interested in the actual plot that I might get sucked in and try the next book. 

 It was a bit long and a bit slow so it definitely could have cut about a 100 pages out but I did really enjoy the fact that even though it's all about magic, they did address the legalities of the legalities of their plan which was a fun thing to add. And also it raised a very good question about whether or not vampires can tell when somebody is menstruating and if they like it or not. 

I initially gave this a 3 but its actually a 2.5. I cant think about it without thinking about how much I hated the "romance" so much it makes me mad. 

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