Review: A Discovery of Witches
ReviewIn this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. – Amazon
Should I even be doing a review on this book? It’s not new to me. I’ve read it every October for the last five or six years. I genuinely love the series – though the ending with the love interest still baffles me a little, but the overall setting and character design keep me coming back year after year even with that issue.
Yes, I’m writing up my reviews about a month ahead of schedule. I wanted to genuinely enjoy the spooky season without the pressure of having to get a review out in a couple of days. One of those things where I should have thought about this back in August when I wanted to do a bunch of spooky books in October. But, September has felt so pleasant that I didn’t want to read those things ahead of time to get the posts out when it would make ‘advertising’ sense.
Alright, so, what is it about this book that gets me every season? I’m genuinely curious. I love the dark academia vibes of the library in the opening of the book. I like the thought out magic system that has ‘understood’ rules and the discovery that some of those rules can be broken.
Yes, the ‘main character doesn’t know how powerful they are because their parents sealed their power as a kid’ trope is something that might be overplayed in YA and manga, but you know what, I like reading those tropes, so if it’s something that gives you the feel goods, this book does that. I think that’s the thing with this is that it has appealed to my age bracket for a while. I’m post academics. But I’m still young enough to not find the main character and LI’s interactions ‘young love’-ish.
Both characters have their flaws. There are moments where they misunderstand each other, but the series doesn’t depend on them being a constant big misunderstanding. When that is the only motivation for a story, I tend to DNF because people just need to learn to talk to each other.
I love the family members in this too. I love both the MC and LI’s units. They are distinct and their homes are built to be cozy in their own ways. That can be hard to write, and even harder to make both family units to be individual, well rounded, and yet loving. Often one in-lawesque person or another is always turned into some kind of villain. The fact that the MC and LI have tragedy, but stability from their homes is something I come back to every time.
The editing is smooth and the vocabulary level stays relatively constant throughout. There are instances where I run across a word or two that seems really GRE, and that has more to do with the word only being used once in the whole of the series. I can’t think of the one that got me this go around with my reading, but it’s just something that I notice.
Do I hate that in the series, Em is killed off in the way that a lot of lgbtq+ folks tend to be killed off in main stream media? Yes. I do. I don’t think it was necessary. The shock factor of it feels flimsy in the second book and the time taken with it in the third book does not do justice for why that particular trope was allowed to make it’s way through the editor’s paws. I digress.
The series has flaws in execution. At least in terms of major cadanence and logic. The concept of a council that has to work together to make sure that the different creatures don’t mingle is…mingling? It’s left in the air a bit as to if it just means productive intercourse. At which point, you have to wonder if they council just targets high profile peeps. My logic in asking that question is: “Have you ever seen teenagers in high school? You’d be amazed where they do things. There’s a reason most public schools have a couple of pregnant girls graduating every year.” If people are going to do the horizontal tango or vertical…some folks are a bit more physically fit than others…they’re going to do it. And a matter of minutes is easy to get away from prying eyes. It’s the marriage/equality/flaunting that you’re dating someone not like yourself bit that seems to be more of the issue, I guess? If you really have to think on it, the premise starts to fall apart because of the coordination of the council. But, if you’re reading the book not for critical thinking and it’s symbolic reflection of politics and racism/sexism/homophobia, then the council can work for the story.
I find it an issue that I willingly overlook every October because I genuinely still enjoy reading the series. I suspect that there are already a lot of people who have read it with varying degrees of enjoyment. So, I doubt I’m telling ya’ll anything new with this review. But, I felt like talking about one of my favorites. So, here you go.
