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A review by archaicrobin
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I was really torn with this book. It was a creepy, dark, feminist, witchy read with monsters both creature and human alike, BUT the writing, characters, and story really just felt like another YA paranormal romance and I was not very satisfied with that. It was disappointing to find these tropes because I feel without them, it could have been such a stronger novel.
Immanuelle lives in a puritanical, sexist society that fears the Dark wood and the witches within it. Women are abused in all ways in broad daylight and everyone just looks the other way because “The Father” is always right. So you have your dystopian sexist trash society, you have your ostracized young girl, and then of course, you have your handsome son of the prophet that falls in love with said ostracized girl. Together they bumble their way through obstacles in an attempt to save themselves and their home from the evil machinations of the Prophet as well as the witches of the dark wood.
I was tempted to count exactly how many chapters started with “Immanuelle woke to…..” but it happened so many times I honestly think it would take to long to count them all. This is just an example of the amateur writing that took me out of the story and made this book a struggle for me to get through. Also, it was very hard to care about the characters at all because they honestly didn’t have much depth beyond “I hate my sexist dad, I am an outcast, I abuse women and am the literal worst”. Those are as deep as your main characters go, and you feel that. I was rooting for the witches in the wood to come and slaughter them all by the end.
While there was a lot I didn’t enjoy about this novel, I did still like the scenes with the witches and honestly that’s probably why I even gave it 3 stars. Without the witches it would be a solid 2.
Immanuelle lives in a puritanical, sexist society that fears the Dark wood and the witches within it. Women are abused in all ways in broad daylight and everyone just looks the other way because “The Father” is always right. So you have your dystopian sexist trash society, you have your ostracized young girl, and then of course, you have your handsome son of the prophet that falls in love with said ostracized girl. Together they bumble their way through obstacles in an attempt to save themselves and their home from the evil machinations of the Prophet as well as the witches of the dark wood.
I was tempted to count exactly how many chapters started with “Immanuelle woke to…..” but it happened so many times I honestly think it would take to long to count them all. This is just an example of the amateur writing that took me out of the story and made this book a struggle for me to get through. Also, it was very hard to care about the characters at all because they honestly didn’t have much depth beyond “I hate my sexist dad, I am an outcast, I abuse women and am the literal worst”. Those are as deep as your main characters go, and you feel that. I was rooting for the witches in the wood to come and slaughter them all by the end.
While there was a lot I didn’t enjoy about this novel, I did still like the scenes with the witches and honestly that’s probably why I even gave it 3 stars. Without the witches it would be a solid 2.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Misogyny