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“Real education doesn’t make your life easy. It complicates things and makes everything messy and disturbing. But the alternative, Elloren Gardner, is to live your life based on injustice and lies.”
4/5 Stars
WOW.
So needless to say, there has been a little, ahem, controversy surrounding The Black Witch. In case you don’t know, there has been a large debate over whether or not the book is racist, with one side insisting that it is, and the other side crying censorship. Opinions are flying around like crazy, each with evidence to support their stance as the “right” one. And, as a reviewer, it is my role to give you my opinion. So, what did I think of The Black Witch?
I loved it, and not only did I not find it racist, but I found it to be antiracist.
I won’t, however, describe my reasons as to why I didn’t find it racist here in my review. If you are interested in why I didn’t find this novel racist, check out my article on that exact subject here. I chose to keep those opinions separate from this review, because, well, I want my review to actually review the book, not just the issue of potential racism inside it. So, if you’re interested in controversy on racism in this book, check out my article!
As for the rest of you who just want to know why I liked the book, let’s dive in!
So, as you may have seen me mention in other reviews, there are four main aspects of books I pay close attention to. Those aspects are:
- The writing
- The characters
- The plot
- The world-building
For the purpose of this review, I’ll touch on each of those domains separately. I’ll start with the first one listed, the writing.
The Writing:
I’m not going to spend too long on this aspect, because I don’t think there’s much unusual about Forest’s writing. Compared to your average Joe, Forest is an extremely talented writer. When it comes to the average published author though? I’d say she’s right in the middle talent wise. I didn’t find myself floored by beautiful prose, nor caught up in the atrocity of the writing. To put it simply: the writing wasn’t good or bad enough to trigger much of a response out of me.
The Characters:
Out of all the characters, I think Elloren is the only one who is truly rounded out, which makes sense, because she is the MC. As an MC, I didn’t love her, but I liked her. And in this point, I suspect I will face some backlash. Because Elloren does make many racist comments in the book, which obviously is an undesirable trait. I also want to mention that she’s kind of cry baby, which is annoying, but oh whale, WHAT CAN YOU DO? But even despite these flaws, I enjoyed Elloren. Why? Because Elloren demonstrated something a lot of MCs don’t, which wasn’t just an ability to change, but a willingness to change. Not only that, but she actively sought out information to challenge her own world view. And that, in a nutshell, is why I thought her character was so great. If more people in the real world were willing to challenge their world views like she is, I think the world would be a better place.
Of course, there was a whole host of characters outside of Elloren. In fact, I would say that there was perhaps too many secondary characters. Don’t believe me? Here’s a list.
- Uncle Edwin (caregiver)
- Aunt Vyvian (kind of caregiver, also kind of villain)
- Rafe (brother)
- Trystan (brother)
- Lukas (love interest)
- Fallon (nemesis)
- Yvan (love interest)
- Aislinn (friend)
- Ariel (roommate)
- Wynter (roommate)
- Diana (friend)
- Jarod (friend)
Aaaaaaand, I think that’s most of them. There’s a few teachers I may have left off, but you get the picture. There’s a LOT of supporting characters, which was a bit of a problem. I’m all for having supporting characters, but once you hit a certain level there’s only so much attention you can give each one, leading to underdevelopment. Personally, I’d take a few well-rounded characters over a lot of shallow characters any day, shallow characters such as Yvan, for example. His defining characteristic is his anger over the injustice of the world, and that’s most of his character development right there, which had me rolling my eyes and internally screaming I WANT MORE at some points.
But with that said, I’d like to take a moment to mention my FAVORITE character in the entire novel, DIANA. Because MY GOD, I loved her. She is so blunt, so unwavering in her culture and beliefs, with so little understanding of other cultures that when she encounters them, she’s often confused. I realize that what I’m describing doesn’t sound likable, but for me she offered some needed comic relief, and her confusion read as endearing.
The Plot:
So, I am going to start by saying that I really enjoyed the plot of this novel, but I can see how others might not. Because the majority of this book focused on Elloren learning about her world, and the implications that had on her character development. It was about her forming relationships with people different than herself, and growing because of them. While there was a bit, there wasn’t as much magic and badassery as many readers like to see. That being said, the ending has me guessing that there will be more of that in the next installment, which I am already on the edge of my seat waiting for, which is a bummer because I have to wait until MAY OF 2018. That’s right, I’m dying here folks.
BUT GETTING BACK ON TRACK, the heart of this novel and it’s plot is the message that you have to grow as a person before you can change the world. And that’s why we get Elloren’s character growth, the first step in this journey. Personally, I found it entertaining, and I enjoyed seeing her change and the way she navigated relationships. There was enough excitement for me in her building relationships, being challenged in school, and the few adventures she had towards the end. BUT, that doesn’t change the fact that at the end of this novel, she hadn’t done much to change the world, instead changing herself. For some people, that might be a little too slow. For me, I loved it. I couldn’t put this book down, so much so that I *may* have neglected some of my homework to finish this book because I found it to be that good.
The World:
WOW. I can only imagine all the documents, sheets and drawings Forest must have in her home to help her keep track of all the little details of this world, because man, was it complex. Not only were there different races of people, but each of them had their own version of history, which we got to see throughout the course of the book. Additionally, the way each race looked at and interacted with each other was rooted in and consistent with that history, a feat that is NOT easy to accomplish.
And one thing I’d like to add that I haven’t seen anyone else saying is that to me this book read not just as fantasy, but as dystopia, my kryptonite genre. Because to me, dystopian books are about societies that reject some people what should be basic human rights at the expense of others. They are societies with oppression stemming from prejudiced beliefs. And while this book hasn’t been labeled as dystopia, coming from a person who reads A LOT of dystopia, it read very much like one, and I LOVED that.
TLDR:
I really enjoyed this book. Was it perfect? No. Like most books, it had its problems. But at the end of the day, not only did I not want to put it down, but I couldn’t put it down, which to me, is a mark of a great book.
For the Love of Literature 