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A review by triskellionquinn
The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Another book I wish had lived up to the expectations I had for it. From the cover to the synopsis, I was obsessing over this book from day one and bought it the moment it came out. I'd had people raving about how great it was all over my social media and thought it would be another trans-led fantasy story I would happily sink my teeth into.
Unfortunately, this ended up being a big bowl of 'meh'. Not to say it was awful and it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the reviews on here make it out to be, but there is definitely a lot in this book that just continued to lower my overall impression and score of the book as a whole.
In the beginning, I related a lot to Wyatt and his anger. To quote: "I find myself lashing out, even when I don't mean to. I blame him for things that aren't his fault, not really. He doesn't understand me anymore. Truthfully, I don't understand me, either." (pg. 64). I've been there, and sometimes people just make it worse by trying to help when you don't even know why you're angry, or getting angry in return because you're lashing out for reasons you can't explain.
But after that, after Wyatt and Briar arrive in Asalin the plot just putters along. It meanders and doesn't really feel like any kind of tension is building, and I was just waiting for Wyatt's grand scheme to get himself kicked out of Asalin to actually... exist beyond petty deviancy?He literally pulled the fae equivalent of stealing his parent's car to go on a joy ride, stole the fae equivalent of marijuana to smoke in secret and created an ill-planned vlog to trash talk a whole group of people and post it online. I guarantee you anyone who was ever a teenager in the 2010's has done all three, and then some with little to no consequence. I kept waiting for him to utilize the one thing that he HAD done, that everyone blamed him for only to be served disappointment at the lack of conviction to make himself a martyr.
Plot aside, as there really didn't feel like one for most of the book, the characters were... There. I made a reading note that I took a two week break from trying to read this book and when I came back I barely remembered who any of the side characters were. I honestly couldn't tell Clarke and Tessa apart half the time and kept getting them mixed up, and I kept forgetting who was related and in what way. I felt apathetic to the whole cast as a whole, where none of their fates really affected me.Particularly Emyr's fate. Or rather non-fate? To reenact my reaction: "Oh, he died." -flips page- "Ah, never mind." . Plus when the entire villain's plot relies entirely on you actually remembering which cardboard cut out they are... You need to write a better villain.
Then we get into the writing style in itself. The first chapter pulled me in, and gave me a taste of what I was hoping the rest of the book would be like. A constant push and pull, full blown friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, but then it just fell apart the longer it went on. I was no longer reading an urban fantasy with fae kingdoms and witches but instead I was reading someone's self-insert fanfic from 2007, complete with cringe-inducing dialogue choices and awkwardly worded sentences. I really, really hate the use of modern slang words in books, because it feels ham-fisted in its attempt to be current to a specific target generation. But language adapts and evolves, English especially. We adopt and create new slang words all the time and drop ones when they no longer become relevant or a new word takes its place, and in the case of this book the use of these words already felt dated, which isn't a good sign for a book that had just come out this year. Not to mention there are already words that exist to describe the very thing that the author was trying to convey with these slang words. Such as Wyatt's internal monologue about wanting to "yeet himself out of the plane". There's a word for that action... It's called "jump", and if that doesn't work then what about "throw"? Personally, I'm a huge fan of "defenestrate", but that only really serves its use when it's involving the act of throwing someone out a window specifically. (Plus it just sounds pretentious).
I can't really say I didn't like the book, but my disappointment in its execution overshadows what I enjoyed about it. The cover is incredible and the synopsis makes you hungry to know the full story. I related to Wyatt's anger at first, and I envied his confidence and comfort in his own body as a transgender man. But the lackluster plot, the flat characters, and the writing as a whole just spelled out a mediocre-at-best reading experience that I won't be revisiting personally, but this is just from my view point as a grown adult reading a YA urban fantasy. Though 15-16 year old me would have eaten this story up and been singing its praises, so it's definitely just a me thing.
Unfortunately, this ended up being a big bowl of 'meh'. Not to say it was awful and it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the reviews on here make it out to be, but there is definitely a lot in this book that just continued to lower my overall impression and score of the book as a whole.
In the beginning, I related a lot to Wyatt and his anger. To quote: "I find myself lashing out, even when I don't mean to. I blame him for things that aren't his fault, not really. He doesn't understand me anymore. Truthfully, I don't understand me, either." (pg. 64). I've been there, and sometimes people just make it worse by trying to help when you don't even know why you're angry, or getting angry in return because you're lashing out for reasons you can't explain.
But after that, after Wyatt and Briar arrive in Asalin the plot just putters along. It meanders and doesn't really feel like any kind of tension is building, and I was just waiting for Wyatt's grand scheme to get himself kicked out of Asalin to actually... exist beyond petty deviancy?
Plot aside, as there really didn't feel like one for most of the book, the characters were... There. I made a reading note that I took a two week break from trying to read this book and when I came back I barely remembered who any of the side characters were. I honestly couldn't tell Clarke and Tessa apart half the time and kept getting them mixed up, and I kept forgetting who was related and in what way. I felt apathetic to the whole cast as a whole, where none of their fates really affected me.
Then we get into the writing style in itself. The first chapter pulled me in, and gave me a taste of what I was hoping the rest of the book would be like. A constant push and pull, full blown friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, but then it just fell apart the longer it went on. I was no longer reading an urban fantasy with fae kingdoms and witches but instead I was reading someone's self-insert fanfic from 2007, complete with cringe-inducing dialogue choices and awkwardly worded sentences. I really, really hate the use of modern slang words in books, because it feels ham-fisted in its attempt to be current to a specific target generation. But language adapts and evolves, English especially. We adopt and create new slang words all the time and drop ones when they no longer become relevant or a new word takes its place, and in the case of this book the use of these words already felt dated, which isn't a good sign for a book that had just come out this year. Not to mention there are already words that exist to describe the very thing that the author was trying to convey with these slang words. Such as Wyatt's internal monologue about wanting to "yeet himself out of the plane". There's a word for that action... It's called "jump", and if that doesn't work then what about "throw"? Personally, I'm a huge fan of "defenestrate", but that only really serves its use when it's involving the act of throwing someone out a window specifically. (Plus it just sounds pretentious).
I can't really say I didn't like the book, but my disappointment in its execution overshadows what I enjoyed about it. The cover is incredible and the synopsis makes you hungry to know the full story. I related to Wyatt's anger at first, and I envied his confidence and comfort in his own body as a transgender man. But the lackluster plot, the flat characters, and the writing as a whole just spelled out a mediocre-at-best reading experience that I won't be revisiting personally, but this is just from my view point as a grown adult reading a YA urban fantasy. Though 15-16 year old me would have eaten this story up and been singing its praises, so it's definitely just a me thing.