Wednesday 19 October 2016

Review of Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1)A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't hate it! It wasn't my favourite book, ever, but I didn't hate reading it and will definitely check out the next book. I think a large, large part of why I struggled with reading it is the book itself is presented as fantasy/paranormal but... it's a romance novel. Like, if you go in knowing it's about 80% romance, then you're prepared and you can focus on the relationship between Matthew and Diana without being like, "Uh, don't you have a plot to take care of?"

The plot itself really only got interesting in the last 100 pages or so, but like I said, the whole rest of the novel is about how pure and magical their love is, so that isn't surprising. But once the plot gets started? Actually really compelling and made me want to read and find out more, especially with how it ended

Which leads me to the biggest issue I had with this book: the characters. Diana and Matthew are the biggest Mary-Sues I've read in a while. Diana fulfills the trope of character that IS SO STRONG! SHE'S SO STRONG AND AMAZING!! WE'RE NOT GONNA SHOW YOU HOW!! BUT WE'RE GONNA TELL YOU OVER AND OVER!! At one point I literally felt like I was reading Twilight all over again, there was such a lack of character. Diana is supposed to be this strong-willed, fearsome witch, but she never does anything that really shows that, and when she DOES, it's because of Matthew! Also, the constant gender stereotyping toward women in this book really pissed me the eff off--enough that I actually put the book down a few times. Also, for a novel about magic and witches, there was remarkably none, and that pissed me off.

So, yeah. Solid 3 stars, but I'm only reading because I like magic and stories with witches (seriously if I'd known there were vampires in this I might not have read lol), and the next book looks promising with its content. But definitely go in expecting a LOT of romance, because that's what you will get.

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