elzbethmrgn's Reviews (667)

Charlotte-Rose Millar has done an outstanding job here of reminding us that diabolism and emotions are integral to early modern English witchcraft beliefs, the lack of which in previous scholarship is highlighted by this excellent work. By using so-far understudied witchcraft pamphlet literature as her core sources for discussion, Millar ably demonstrates the importance of emotion in popular conceptions and perceptions of witchcraft, highlighting not only the evolution of witch beliefs over the early modern period, but also the continuity of beliefs over that same period, indicating that pamphleteers and the reading public had a fairly stable and specific idea of what a witch was and what witchcraft entailed.

A very cogent and sensible argument in a very readable monograph. I very much enjoyed this one.

I can't write a proper review of this book because I cannot finish it. I am a third of the way in and it is tedious - to the point where I don't want to pick up my kindle because I know it's there, waiting for me. I just can't do it. I don't know if it gets better if you trudge through it a little longer but I like my female YA protagonists to actually be able to do more than look to the men in her life for guidance. If I wanted to read about men saving the day and guiding the girl I'd just read adult fantasy. I have been trudging for days now and it's not looking any better.

Nope. I'm reading everything but this, so it's time to admit defeat. At half way I like precisely none of the characters and give a shit about even fewer.

Many of these stories were pure squee for this girl who met Alanna ([b:Alanna: The First Adventure|13831|Alanna The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness, #1)|Tamora Pierce|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388206270s/13831.jpg|1936544]) half a lifetime ago. Short snippets of how my friends were going was lovely. And, because they are my friends, I probably forgive this book some sins. Certainly, I wasn't a fan of the urban fantasy story, the straight up fiction-based-on-reality story right at the end.

If you're a fan of Aly (or Nawat), or Kitten (or Daine and Numair), or want to know what happened to that tree Numair turned into a man, read this book.