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Olivier Delaye's Reviews > A Secret History of Witches
A Secret History of Witches
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When I picked up A Secret History of Witches, I was hoping for a sprawling family saga a la Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour which I thoroughly enjoyed both for its beautiful prose and captivating plot. Well, hope might spring eternal but patience has a limit, and I reached mine by page 200. Not only is the story tediously repetitive with each new generation of witches basically doing the same things as the last, the characterization is also incredibly shallow and clunky in its sexist representation of gender. Men are either evil or stupid to the extreme, while more often than not women sound like insufferable brats full of themselves. In short, if you’re looking for examples of female empowerment done wrong (although for the life of me I don't know why you'd want to!), then this book is most definitely for you. As for the magic itself, don’t expect to be charmed by any spell, incantation or supernatural manifestation, because everything is kept to a boring minimum where instead of fantastic fireworks you only get sputtering duds. First DNF of 2019. Hopefully the last.
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Tracey
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Jul 01, 2019 03:51PM
It seems people either strongly hate or strongly love this book. I keep picking other books to purchase, while this is still on my list. I may just remove for awhile and if it passes in front of me at the secondhand bookstore, then maybe I'll buy.
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Tracey wrote: "It seems people either strongly hate or strongly love this book. I keep picking other books to purchase, while this is still on my list. I may just remove for awhile and if it passes in front of me..."I think the reason this book made me so frustrated as to give up on it is because the expectation and the buzz around it was so high that I really felt like I was in for a treat. Goes back to the old adage, I guess--expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed!
