A review by marylinaris
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

I took several pages of notes while reading but I genuinely can’t put them into a succinct review, so bullet points got to do. 

Things I liked: 
• the worldbuilding 
• the plot hooked me from the beginning and kept me intrigued till the end 
• that Diana has grown up knowing about the magical things in the world and her not knowing specific things that were later revealed gets a good explanation 
• descriptions part 1 - this book had some very flowery prose and did a great job describing the general settings; it very much gave the sense that the author has lived these places, sports and activities 

Things I didn’t like: 
• describing the only two WoC by comparing their skin to the color of beverages 
• the short timeline when it comes to the romantic relationship (I didn’t mind their instalove but their speedrun from strangers to lover to married in one month was a little too much) 
• both main characters, but especially Diana, are way too dramatic (this goes hand in hand with the short timeline but I couldn’t take her seriously when she swore undying love and devotion to Matthew after knowing him for half a month –– not to say Matthew wasn’t dramatic, that man has an emotional breakdown at his friends place about how much he loved Diana... THREE DAYS AFTER THEY MET) 
• descriptions part 2 - overall too much! While nicely written most of it was just not needed for the plot or setting up the scene. The way we were told about just every outfit Diana put on very much gives ‘this was written by a teenager on wattpad in 2013 who thinks it is necessary to describe every single item of clothing the mc ever wears’. We don’t need to hear about every single food group Diana eats when they have a meal? So much of it has no plot relevancy and I, personally, do not need the author to hold my hand through the book and give me this much detail when it comes to just about everything. I can believe the line ‘She had a quick breakfast and brushed her teeth before heading out’ and do not need every single step that goes into these actions written out in detail to follow the story - truly it was more hindering than helpful 

Random other things: 
• at some point I just wrote down that it feels like the entirety of Oxford is just made up of non-human creatures because there were like three human side characters and the rest of the town was filled with vampires, witches and daemons 
• I’ve heard about how possessive Matthew was going to be before I picked up the book, so I wasn’t really bothered by it for most of the book tbh (the only way it got a little annoying in was when he tried to keep Diana save, she wouldn’t listen, stayed and couldn’t even really defend herself) 
• this book was published in 2011 and you can tell, surprisingly it refrained from the ‘not like other girls’ trope for the most part 
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