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emmacatereads 's review for:
Our Crooked Hearts
by Melissa Albert
All I had to know was that this had witchy vibes and a troubled mother/daughter relationship and I was hooked. I was a bit trepidatious going into this as the Hazel Wood series was a huge miss for me, but this maintains Albert’s stylistic stamps of gorgeous language and crackling atmosphere while honing in on characterization and relationships that felt lacking in her debut. Ivy and her mother Dana are the spider at the center of the web that glues this story together: whether we are in Dana’s past or Ivy’s present they are consistently the anchor that guides the rest of the narrative.
There are pros and cons to this: while their separate and entangled A plots were brilliant, the rest of the characters didn’t posses nearly as much gravity. Hank, Ivy’s father, Aunt Fee, even Marion, all paled in comparison to the central duo. The codependent coven of Dana, Fee, and Ivy came close near the beginning but quickly dissolved as the dynamics rapidly swung out of sync. Ivy’s romance subplot felt stilted and unnecessary; Billy a cardboard boy who existed because the genre convention demanded his presence. It was hard to pay attention to any of their side flirtations when all I wanted to do was get back to the unfolding drama of Ivy, Dana, and Marion.
I do also have to celebrate Albert for her dialogue choices - it’s rare that I find characters who speak genuinely and cleverly and have conversations I’d be likely to share with my own friends. Also, shoutout to the Kaz Brekker cheekbones reference.
There are pros and cons to this: while their separate and entangled A plots were brilliant, the rest of the characters didn’t posses nearly as much gravity. Hank, Ivy’s father, Aunt Fee, even Marion, all paled in comparison to the central duo. The codependent coven of Dana, Fee, and Ivy came close near the beginning but quickly dissolved as the dynamics rapidly swung out of sync. Ivy’s romance subplot felt stilted and unnecessary; Billy a cardboard boy who existed because the genre convention demanded his presence. It was hard to pay attention to any of their side flirtations when all I wanted to do was get back to the unfolding drama of Ivy, Dana, and Marion.
I do also have to celebrate Albert for her dialogue choices - it’s rare that I find characters who speak genuinely and cleverly and have conversations I’d be likely to share with my own friends. Also, shoutout to the Kaz Brekker cheekbones reference.