For how much this was supposed to be about witches, spells, and a good sapphic romance, we didn't get any of that. The first 150 pages of this book to me about 5 days to read (which I can literally finish over 5 books in that time frame). I couldn't seem to find a plot. But I continued reading, because by the 150-page mark, the actual book synopsis came into play. So, I continued on; I should have listened to myself and DNF'ed at the 150 pages but alas, I did not.


There wasn't much I enjoyed about A Lesson in Vengeance. I guess really the only thing was the writing? I mean it took me almost a week to get through this, but I didn't mind the writing. I also liked the Dark Academia vibes? I mean, that's about it.


However, my dislikes are many.

- Nothing happened. This was 370 pages of absolutely nothing. You came for a plot? Well leave as soon as you can because there isn't one.

- The romance was awful. Ellis, our love interest, is a manipulative, self-centered, and lackluster main love interest. I was told I was getting a great f/f dark academia romance with witches, which didn't at all happen. KINDA SPOILER: Ellis doesn't even believe in witches, and she's never once convinced witches are real.

- The stakes for murder and witches were never there. The author obviously wrote our main character, Felicity, as an unreliable narrator to try and up the stakes on the murder and witches. But it just wasn't done well. Unreliable narrators aren't really that complicated to write. But when you keep enforcing the ideas that your characters are grappling whether real or not real, the reader is going to know what's real and what's not real.

- The overall final mystery takes place within the last 70 pages and gets resolved in quite literately 20.

- Speaking of the final mystery, the last 100 pages of this book felt like I was reading an entirely different story all together. The final mystery did not make any sense whatsoever. It came out of nowhere. It felt like even the writing style changed slightly.

- The magic system made no sense. Apparently, everyone can become a witch?

Overall, I'm just extremely disappointed in this story. A Lesson in Vengeance was one of my most anticipated releases of last year. Everything about this sounded like something I'd love; however, unfortunately it was not. I don't know if I will pick up anything more from this author, but if Victoria Lee writes something that especially intrigues me, then I may pick it up.


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Pre-review thoughts:


I've come to the conclusion that maybe dark academia is not my genre. I always seem to have issues with one thing or the other when it comes to novels like this. They all tend to blend together this point, and they never seem to have a cohesive plot. Maybe I'm reading the wrong ones, but my hypothesis is that dark academia is not my genre.