A review by ellelainey
Muted: Volume 1 by Miranda Mundt

4.0

 

 ** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE ** 

 Copy received through Netgalley 

 ~ 

 Muted, Vol. 1 is an interesting sapphic urban fantasy story, with elements of mystery, magic, romance and potential past crimes. 

 Cammie / Camille is a young witch in training, who is about to be put through the family ritual to summon a demon who will grant her a wish. However, Camille is really nervous, and her aunt is an overbearing w-itch who is basically controlling Camille's life, including keeping her separated from her familiar. 

 There's a lot of back story to Camille – a fire when she was young that killed her mother and sister, leaving her alone, as well as having spent her life living with her overbearing aunt and kind cousin. Her life isn't happy, but it gets worse when she goes into the ritual and it doesn't go as planned. Camille decides to run rather than face her aunt's wrath and ends up in a dangerous situation. As a consequence, another aunt decides to take Camille back to her family home to recover. While there, aside from recovering, she discovers some long-hidden family secrets and reconnects with her familiar. 

 Along the way on her journey of self-discovery, Camille meets some witches from other covens/families and finds herself making some interesting friends...and a potential new girlfriend. 

 I liked Camille. She was bright, spunky and brave, but she did become a bit too much of a stereotypical moody, misunderstood teenager sometimes. I also liked a lot of the secondary characters; they all seemed quiet individual, unique and interesting in their own way. 

 Overall, the plot and characters are good, but I did have a few issues that stopped it from getting the 5* rating it could have. 

 1) I have no idea what the title refers to, and I always find that when I do understand it makes a lot of other things make sense. 

 2) This may be an ARC, but there were A LOT of editing issues. I counted at least a half dozen typos within the text, which is quite unusual for a graphic novel / manga, even an ARC. 

 3) The cliffhanger ending felt sudden and anti-climactic. I don't mind a cliffhanger, especially in a comic book or graphic novel, since it's generally expected, however – Camille is warned that her aunt knows a secret, but WE, the reader, have no idea what secret this is referring to. Because of the character who says it – her cousin, the only one who doesn't know the big secret that Camille's recently discovered – we have no idea what this is referring to, which means that the warning about her aunt falls completely flat. It would have been an exciting, dramatic ending if we only had even a hint of a clue as to what secret was about to be discovered.