A review by anna4
The Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I read book one, “The Crimson Moth”, in March of this year and surprisingly hadn’t had any (bigger) issues connecting with the story or the characters with a ~9 month gap between both books. 

I’m also happy to report back that I enjoyed “The Rebel Witch” more than “The Crimson Moth”!

Loved the character, their development and especially the direction of the plot and how it all played out in the end.

The book is well written and had great pacing. I also thought it reads better/easier than book one, which is not to say that I had any issues with the writing on the previous book.

There was some back and forth between Rune and Gideon in the beginning, trying to figure out how to move on from their mutual betrayal, which I can see some people would feel a certain type of way about. I didn’t mind.

I want to particularly point out that I noticed how Harrow’s character was better utilized in this book than it has been in “The Crimson Moth”. I felt her only reason to exist in book one was to point Gideon in Rune’s direction, which could have been easily done by literally any other character, so seeing her here having her own backstory and getting a better glimpse at her personality was really nice.

Would have loved if we could have gotten more of her and if it then had been better balanced between both books. 

Having Cressida being now an actual part of the story, I would have loved to have some chapters from her pov, but I can see why the author stuck to Rune & Gideon.

The ending was beautiful and wrapped up the story very nicely.

Final thoughts on this duology/series: “The Crimson Moth” & “The Rebel Witch” are one of the better YA fantasy books out there and that I have read in a while. Great writing, great characters & chemistry, plot and pacing. 

If I were to critique anything, it would have been that both books have a certain level of predictability, which I guess is to be expected considering it’s YA, but I personally didn’t care at all nor wasn’t bothered by it, because everything else worked out so well! 

I can highly recommend this series.

Thank you Magpie for providing this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.