**spoiler alert** I had high hopes for this book, but it ended up being so bad as to be offensively inane and bizarrely moralistic for a novel about w**spoiler alert** I had high hopes for this book, but it ended up being so bad as to be offensively inane and bizarrely moralistic for a novel about witchcraft.
It is a collection of interconnected novellas about a family of witches. Each one uses magic to find a man and, like many young women in cautionary tales, get pregnant the first time they have illicit sex. Each woman invariably has a daughter to whom she must teach witch craft, and each daughter has a predictably strained relationship with her mother. Since there are several novellas, each mother/daughter troupe is explored, first the single mother with practical daughter, then the hard working mother with a semi-absent father and snobby daughter, then the icey snobby mother with the free spirited daughter (this was arguably the best novella), then the dead mother with the blandly dutiful daughter who *gasp* gets pregnant the first time she has sex and has an abortion and feels bad the rest of her life and is punished with infertility by the witch goddess.
The final novella takes place during World War 2 and turns into a bizarre MarySue fan girl fantasy about Elizabeth Winsor (the queen consort) being a witch and using her powers to help the British War Effort. Her I found this story line so insulting that I logged onto the goodreads website on my computer so I could use a full keyboard for this review.
In the hands of a better author, this could have been a good novel, but the research felt lazy and the style felt like it was trying to mirror literary styles of the time period, but just came off as disjointed. The characters were hard to care about because there were so few of them and they all felt so devoid of inner life until they found a love interest, and once they had their one daughter they slipped quietly into the background or died. ...more
This book presents a cogent argument for the roots of the current leader list organization of white supremacists and the Vietnam war. It provides a thThis book presents a cogent argument for the roots of the current leader list organization of white supremacists and the Vietnam war. It provides a through line for the movements of the radical right beginning in the 1950s and continuing today. Is an important concept for anyone seeking to understand violent extremists.
The only thing I would have wanted would be more information about current trends. ...more
I have been meaning to read this book for a while, and it did not disappoint. I would give it 4 1/2 stars due to the nature of the subject, the authorI have been meaning to read this book for a while, and it did not disappoint. I would give it 4 1/2 stars due to the nature of the subject, the author needed to bounce around a lot geographically and chronologically and it was a little difficult to keep up with. I think the difficulty in following the author geographically has more to do with my own ignorance about South American geography than anything else.
I’m glad I read this and it has made me interested to know more about the history of The Americas. A couple of years ago I read the book “braiding sweet grass” which discussed the impact the native peoples had on the land prior to the arrival of European colonizers. 1491 also discusses the impact of people on the land and the whole concept is just very interesting to me because it is so different from how land is used today. I thought it was also interesting that whenever European peasants left to live among Native Americans the Europeans were reluctant to Return to the structure of European villages. ...more
**spoiler alert** This is the story of the witch of Glencoe and it follows her life before during and after the massacre of Glencoe. It is pretty stre**spoiler alert** This is the story of the witch of Glencoe and it follows her life before during and after the massacre of Glencoe. It is pretty stressful. This is a part of Scottish history that I was not very familiar with but I enjoyed learning about highland life and The politics of the time.I liked Outlander and there were some similar themes. At first I thought “dang she’s picking up Diana Gabaldon ‘s” then I realized that Diana Gabaldon Must’ve gotten some of the inspiration from the legend of the Glencoe witch and I thought “wow they’re so so much history I still have to learn.”...more
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