Oh my GOD this has to be one of the weirdest, trippiest, unsettling things I’ve ever read. I’m obsessed I think?

It’s love as ferality and obsession. It’s the danger of tipping yourself way too far over to please and placate others. It’s the desire to consume and tuck things away solely for you. It’s exploitation and hauntings and magic and rot and descents into madness.

We’re following a group of young witches: sisters Vanity and Arrogance, Ellis, and Clover. They live on the grounds of the Museum - with visitors gawking at them in their cottages through one-way mirrors - and know that when their parents die, they will be led back to the Machine to unlock their types of magic and take over as Spectacles.

The Museum staff keep them isolated from the outside world and from each other in order to control them, keep them as sane as possible, and prevent them from unleashing the apocalypse. But the witches begin to form a coven, and as their obsessions and relationships deepen, their ability to access magic might just unlock.

The storytelling is nonlinear and very stream-of-consciousness. Seeing through Vanity’s eyes was a visceral experience into psychosis. You know as a reader that she can’t possibly be reliable, but you have to do your best to glean what you can from her desperation and hope and loneliness. 

This is a story that’s more about vibes and experience and metaphor than plot. Things are revealed and there are major happenings, but nothing is ever tied in a bow or patiently explained. If you need facts and conclusions, this won’t be the book for you.

While the Museum witches live a life of exploited luxury, other witches exist in the horrifying Sanitorium. They live in coma-like states while their essence is drawn out to create world-altering drugs. Truly - each part of this world is uniquely grotesque while also feeling just a few shades away from parts of our current reality. 

The Coven Tendency is so strikingly luscious and unique. I ate up every bit of prose and I feel like this book consumed me as much as I consumed it. This speaks to spectacle and objectification and bodies as nasty, rotting things. 

Zoe Hana Mikuta, I’m ready and waiting for whichever way you decide to fuck me up next. Carve into me!!

 

CW: cannibalism, gore, body horror, suicide, death (parent), eating disorder, confinement, self harm, toxic relationships, mental illness, drug abuse, gaslighting, animal death, psychosis, murder, blood, car accident, child abuse, cultural appropriation

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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)