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ninetalevixen 's review for:
The Near Witch
by V.E. Schwab
content warnings:
"I will hold fast to this new story, too, tuck it away beside my father's bedtime tales, beside Magda's tea talk. I will remember everything."
As debut novels go this isn't half bad — but for me it doesn't hold a candle to Schwab's better-known works, with their brilliant originality and vivid characters. That said, in the interest of fairness I'll try to review this one without emphasis of that comparison.
This novel's greatest strength is probably how atmospheric it is. Children's rhymes and whispered folktales and flowing physical descriptions of the moor/wind/moonlight paint a detailed picture of the town of Near and its inhabitants. Lexi is a keen observer of the world around her and has a lot of quotable thoughts: about the nature of secrets, of bad news, of night vs day.
Thematically, this is an objectively well-crafted narrative, though a bit heavy-handed and repetitive for my taste. A classic (literal) witch hunt, driven by fear of strangers and of harm to the town's children and, of course, of the quiet power of women. The consequences of those fears. The things that are done in the dark then revealed by morning light. The eerie lullaby of the wind, of the open moor.
The characters also fell somewhat flat, I think primarily because their relationships (whether familial or romantic) were so static, relying on the reader's expectations to automatically fill in the gaps. And you won't find much character development here. I did appreciate the subtle gray-morality, that the perceived antagonists aren't evil or cruel for the sake of it but rather because they feel driven to it, though this seems to fall by the wayside in the latter half.
But I think the most telling sign is that I just wasn't interested in learning more. My edition of The Near Witch includes the prequel story, [b:The Ash-Born Boy|13643876|The Ash-Born Boy (The Near Witch, #0.5)|Victoria Schwab|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1336677492l/13643876._SY75_.jpg|19259682], and I realized that I didn't care to read it.
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CONVERSION: 7.9 / 15 = 3 stars
Prose: 6 / 10
Characters & Relationships: 5 / 10
Emotional Impact: 3 / 10
Development / Flow: 5 / 10
Setting: 8 / 10
Originality / Trope Execution: 3 / 5
Memorability: 2 / 5
Spoiler
child abductions, sexual harassment & possessiveness, threatened & off-page gun violence, (literal) witch hunt, precanon parent deaths, mentioned past child death, grief"I will hold fast to this new story, too, tuck it away beside my father's bedtime tales, beside Magda's tea talk. I will remember everything."
As debut novels go this isn't half bad — but for me it doesn't hold a candle to Schwab's better-known works, with their brilliant originality and vivid characters. That said, in the interest of fairness I'll try to review this one without emphasis of that comparison.
This novel's greatest strength is probably how atmospheric it is. Children's rhymes and whispered folktales and flowing physical descriptions of the moor/wind/moonlight paint a detailed picture of the town of Near and its inhabitants. Lexi is a keen observer of the world around her and has a lot of quotable thoughts: about the nature of secrets, of bad news, of night vs day.
Thematically, this is an objectively well-crafted narrative, though a bit heavy-handed and repetitive for my taste. A classic (literal) witch hunt, driven by fear of strangers and of harm to the town's children and, of course, of the quiet power of women. The consequences of those fears. The things that are done in the dark then revealed by morning light. The eerie lullaby of the wind, of the open moor.
The characters also fell somewhat flat, I think primarily because their relationships (whether familial or romantic) were so static, relying on the reader's expectations to automatically fill in the gaps. And you won't find much character development here. I did appreciate the subtle gray-morality, that the perceived antagonists aren't evil or cruel for the sake of it but rather because they feel driven to it, though this seems to fall by the wayside in the latter half.
But I think the most telling sign is that I just wasn't interested in learning more. My edition of The Near Witch includes the prequel story, [b:The Ash-Born Boy|13643876|The Ash-Born Boy (The Near Witch, #0.5)|Victoria Schwab|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1336677492l/13643876._SY75_.jpg|19259682], and I realized that I didn't care to read it.
-----------
CONVERSION: 7.9 / 15 = 3 stars
Prose: 6 / 10
Characters & Relationships: 5 / 10
Emotional Impact: 3 / 10
Development / Flow: 5 / 10
Setting: 8 / 10
Originality / Trope Execution: 3 / 5
Memorability: 2 / 5