From the Bookshelf of 2015 Reading Challenge [Closed]…

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1)

Deborah Harkness

Discussion: . Week 1: More Than 500 Pages

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. Week 1: More Than 500 Pages

* Week 1: Introduction
By Jessica · 102 posts · 1093 views

last updated Aug 11, 2015 02:06PM

* Week 1: Progress Post
By Jessica · 100 posts · 421 views

last updated Nov 06, 2015 06:29AM

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What Members Thought

Aug 04, 2019 Nicole rated it did not like it

Shelves: our-personal-library, no-thanks, fiction, read-in-2019, owned-audiobooks, urban-fantasy, vampires, witches

I'm actually really mad at this book. It had such a great premise (I love the idea of magic existing within/behind our logical, scientific world), the historian/librarian/manuscripts filled with lost knowledge angle is right in my wheelhouse ... but the promise of the book is completely, utterly ruined by the characters, assisted by a healthy amount of unecessary plot padding.

First, the characters. Diana's bad enough - she's a Mary Sue through and through. She's not like other girls, she doesn' I'm actually really mad at this book. It had such a great premise (I love the idea of magic existing within/behind our logical, scientific world), the historian/librarian/manuscripts filled with lost knowledge angle is right in my wheelhouse ... but the promise of the book is completely, utterly ruined by the characters, assisted by a healthy amount of unecessary plot padding.

First, the characters. Diana's bad enough - she's a Mary Sue through and through. She's not like other girls, she doesn't care about makeup! And she eats big breakfasts! And she's athletic! But she's also basically incapable of caring for herself or doing anything for herself once Matthew shows up (MORE ON THAT IN A BIT), and despite not having much personality, is immediately recognized and treated as the most special snowflake to ever snowflake by every other character in the book.

But Matthew. My god, I don't know if I've ever had my opinion of a book ruined by a single character so thoroughly. He was stalkerish, patronizing, possessive, and controlling in basically every interaction with most of the characters, but especially Diana. I'm actually appalled at how much of the book is spent on Diana dealing with his anger, trying to prevent his anger, or anticipating his anger. It was disturbing to me, and no amount of "he's a vampire, that's how they are" hand-waving changes the fact that within a week, the main character (who we are led to believe is intelligent and independent) is essentially trapped for life in a relationship with a man who won't even let her own aunts near her without the implied threat of violence. WTF?

My last complaint is the unnecessary length of the book. A LOT could have been cut out. How much do we need to hear about vampire yoga and every single meal these people eat? Diana eating toast took up just as much time as other, far more important events.

I did like the aunts' house, and like I said, the premise of the book is great. If you know of a series about historian supernatural beings falling in love and saving the world that is actually well-written, let me know. In the meantime, I will not be continuing with the series.

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