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thebookwolf 's review for:
A Discovery of Witches
by Deborah Harkness
The first bit of the book I absolutely loved. Most of the book was set in the library and I adored that. Secondly, she's a historian. Another check mark for me. I'm a bit of a history buff. Add vampires and daemons and witches, oh my?! Fantastic.
Or so I thought. As the book progressed it became less about the library, super rare manuscript and people trying to kill her for it. Instead it became about her romance with a vampire. I'm all for forbidden love stories but I didn't find that aspect of it was well written. Like it was literally them against the world for a while. But then in the matter of a couple of minutes to a couple of days (depending which character), she was able to poof away racism between vamps and witches for a couple of characters. It just got annoying.
Now I can appreciate the fact he's a vampire and therefore has really old and rare books. But he just happens to have an alchemy book that has 2 illustrations that no one has ever seen before? Really? But alright, I'll let that go because the history nerd in me would kill almost anyone for an opportunity like that. But there was also a whole lot of name dropping in the book. Everyone in history she admired or appreciated the works of? Mr. Vamps was good buddies with them, naturally!
Matthew really wasn't that captivating of a character either. He was just kinda there. Nothing about him really stood out to make him memorable.
Oh and we can't forget that she's the daughter of the two most powerful witches of their time. So that means she's beyond powerful and nobody knows the extent of her powers. Not even her, because her powers were bound when she was a kid by her parents who died trying to protect her because she's so special. Even old manuscripts depict her and Sir Vampsalot.
It started to get painful to read. Especially the part where they did a DNA test to see what magical powers she possessed and she seemed to have in her blood the means to do everything, even though every other witch can only do one or two. Of course, these things only manifested after the results came in.
How could I possibly forget that there was breaking news! Vampires may be able to reproduce after all! Better start freaking out about that as though she missed her period. Oh but wait. THEY HAVEN'T EVEN HAD SEX. Because even though they've known each other for a month and have gotten married, they decided to wait to sleep together.
All in all, not that great. That's unfortunate, given how much I enjoyed the beginning. Will I read the next two? No, probably not.
Or so I thought. As the book progressed it became less about the library, super rare manuscript and people trying to kill her for it. Instead it became about her romance with a vampire. I'm all for forbidden love stories but I didn't find that aspect of it was well written. Like it was literally them against the world for a while. But then in the matter of a couple of minutes to a couple of days (depending which character), she was able to poof away racism between vamps and witches for a couple of characters. It just got annoying.
Now I can appreciate the fact he's a vampire and therefore has really old and rare books. But he just happens to have an alchemy book that has 2 illustrations that no one has ever seen before? Really? But alright, I'll let that go because the history nerd in me would kill almost anyone for an opportunity like that. But there was also a whole lot of name dropping in the book. Everyone in history she admired or appreciated the works of? Mr. Vamps was good buddies with them, naturally!
Matthew really wasn't that captivating of a character either. He was just kinda there. Nothing about him really stood out to make him memorable.
Oh and we can't forget that she's the daughter of the two most powerful witches of their time. So that means she's beyond powerful and nobody knows the extent of her powers. Not even her, because her powers were bound when she was a kid by her parents who died trying to protect her because she's so special. Even old manuscripts depict her and Sir Vampsalot.
It started to get painful to read. Especially the part where they did a DNA test to see what magical powers she possessed and she seemed to have in her blood the means to do everything, even though every other witch can only do one or two. Of course, these things only manifested after the results came in.
How could I possibly forget that there was breaking news! Vampires may be able to reproduce after all! Better start freaking out about that as though she missed her period. Oh but wait. THEY HAVEN'T EVEN HAD SEX. Because even though they've known each other for a month and have gotten married, they decided to wait to sleep together.
All in all, not that great. That's unfortunate, given how much I enjoyed the beginning. Will I read the next two? No, probably not.