This is one of those books I was so excited to read, à la The Lost Apothecary, and which let me down so hard. I did not enjoy this book whatsoever. From the writing to the thin, weak thing that serves as plot, I gritted and ground my teeth through this entire book. I understand that the author’s book The Ten Thousand Doors of January is supposed to be amazing, but I will be abstaining because I cannot imagine it’s somehow significantly better than this book.
What little I could follow of this book made only the barest of sense to me. To me, it felt as though the author was just shoe-horning things in the book that wouldn’t have otherwise fit in the time and place. And the magic system made absolutely no sense to me at all, either.
I mean, dear reader, you know yourself. If this is the kind of book you like, full of fairy-tales and happy endings and bland characters, that’s at once full of unnecessary twists and turns and also felt lazily written, then go for it. I’m not knocking you. Well, not a lot, anyway. Everyone’s free to read whatever they like, and I’m sure my recent favorites would make people roll their eyes, so I don’t actually judge people for their choices. I do, however, judge the shit out of the books themselves, and to me, The Once and Future Witches just was not it. Condemned.
Dates read: September 3rd through 6th, 2021
Emjay Reads 