Book Review: A Discovery of Witches

Nina did her own review of this book, which you can read on Goodreads if you're her friend. Which you should be. I decided to do mine here.

All right, let's get right down it, kids. This vampire thing is killing me slowly (no pun intended). Granted, the writing is better than most of these books are. Not brilliant, by any stretch of the imagination, but she's a whole head and shoulders above Twilight. Though, admittedly, that's not saying much. At all. Her explanations of supernatural occurrences aren't awful. But it is pretty much (at least the beginning 2/3rds) a mindless love story about people feeling overwhelmed and so madly in love that they cease to really function properly. (Indeed, they start making rather absurd choices on a regular basis.) You know, the kind of love where they can hear each others' thoughts and the male has gone 1,500 years without ever once having felt so strongly. Because that's just so likely. They're naturally extra special in some way or another, the male is super old and famously mysterious/brutal (I can't decide which one they were going for), the female is incredibly brilliant and talented. Of course all of that goes right out the window when they meet each other and start acting like idiots. Then the same old vampire story happens. The male becomes overly (and oh, so annoyingly) protective and the female becomes overly stubborn. The male is abnormally manly and big and strong, so obviously he uses his strength to physically restrain the female's "hysteria," if you will, or strong emotions such as anger or frustration, yet strangely she doesn't feel resentful at this invasion of her privacy, and still tries to act like she hates it while secretly loving it. Some kind of contrived outside force obligates them to ban together and fight for their right to love each other. They're destined to be together since the beginning of time and all that rot. People really crave that, don't they? They want to feel overwhelmed. They want to be so out of their minds they can't function. And while I can understand that love is a kind of drug, and that frequently people crave it because of the euphoria ones feels, it seems... well, excessive to me. And not exactly desirable.

As I kept reading, the book continued to be kind of blah blah blah, forced, and occasionally, mind-numbingly boring. Nina is right about the descriptions. So many of them were absolutely unnecessary. I don't need to hear about every detail of every day, and I don't need to hear all about her exciting adventure into his cryptic personal things, the explanation of which is barely glossed over at the end. I probably couldn't even count on two hands the number of times I read about the female, Diana, taking a bath. Goodness, she loves baths. But one thing that really stuck out to me is this trend in which the leading romantic male character has a terrible temper. I'm kind of astonished, really, by this. How is that at all a desirable trait? The male, Matthew, is frequently, suddenly, and (unfortunately) sometimes violently angry about oh, my word. Eve. Ry. Thing. Mostly having to do with Diana and his uncontrollable need to keep her under his definition of "safe." Like if she does anything whatsoever to question his power, strength, or what he somehow imagines as a question of her safety, he goes berserk. He's exceedingly controlling, bossy, and condescending about her judgment and somehow this is ... what? Acceptable and appealing? Charming? Chivalrous? I don't think so. It sounds supremely awful and exhausting to me. A bad temper is a really terrible thing, folks, and this bizarre need to glorify it in male characters is frankly rather disturbing. I mean, come on, this guy is 1,500 years old, and he hasn't learned how to control his anger yet?? That's just ludicrous. And it would make for a really looooong 1,500 years. Perhaps the reason authors keep writing male characters this way is to portray strength. I imagine they believe they have no other way to make the reader understand a strong male figure as being anything but violent. And I imagine the female characters take it (and female readers enjoy it) because they think that his anger over her actions is because he's relieved she isn't harmed. I guess it's a kind of way to show affection. I love you so much I'm going to smother you, mistrust your judgment, and be entirely demeaning in every fashion I can imagine. Or, I'm so mad because I'm really just relieved that your stupidity hasn't gotten you killed. It just seems so offensive to me. Not to mention dangerous. Like those people who murder their cheating spouse because they "just loved them so much." Right. Does no one understand how a healthy relationship works? I mean seriously. Get a clue people. Being terrified that your huge, strong, territorial, boyfriend who believes you to be a piece of his property is going to blow his lid every time you stand up for yourself, make a decision on your own, or look at him funny is not a great way to live. You're going to feel trapped and suffocated extremely quickly. It's what we like to refer to as "emotional abuse."

Fortunately for this book, it takes some very positive turns. Diana's inability to defend herself is revealed, and steps are made to reverse this situation. Matthew controls his need to boss her around (but not his need to smother her, I noticed) at every turn when he realizes she is capable of defending herself. He starts to trust her judgment and lets her make decisions on her own. They start to compromise, choose their battles, and find a balance. Diana begins to learn her powers, and I liked reading about her abilities as they unfold. Diana's aunts' house is also probably the best character in the book. I love the house, the fact that it's alive and helps the people who live there is so, so fun. That probably sounds creepy, but it's actually really great. I enjoy the descriptions of places, the author really had a good handle on that. I think you really feel like you understand the landscape and the feel. Of course, one of the places is Upstate New York in the fall, which is very near and dear to me. The witches' connection with the earth was also really pleasing. There are a few scenes towards the end of the book that I really got into, most of them having to do with Diana and her craft, or ability to work with the elements. Though the scene where Diana and Matthew hand out candy together on Halloween is so sweet. I didn't mind that a whole bunch of questions weren't answered by the end, as it's supposed to be a trilogy. And I'm glad that she did answer some questions. The set-up for the next book is good.

Unlike Nina, I don't feel like Diana was a poorly written weakling in this book. I agree that most leading females are. However, I do think it would be difficult to deal with Matthew's anger and condescension, no matter who you are. Especially if he's like 6'5" and occasionally physically restrains you (what was that about abuse, again?). But, as previously mentioned, I feel like she does an okay job forcing him to help her find a balance towards the end. I don't see a major character change in Diana, either. She has trouble learning about her magic because she appears to be more magical than anyone else in the world at that time, and because of another issue which I won't reveal. But I don't feel like she never made any efforts to change once she decided on that course of action. She just has a lack of guidance. One thing I did notice though, is that the author made her dumber than she kept telling the reader that she was. I hate that. Diana's supposed to be this amazing scholar with degrees from Harvard and Yale and Oxford, and sometimes she's so slow on the uptake, it's embarrassing. But I think part of that is just that the author clearly isn't as smart as her character.

Hey, here's a question. How come it's always the male who's a vampire in these books? I'll tell you why. Because the females need to be weaker than the male, so he can rescue her all the time. This country's got a real damsel-in-distress obsession. Though the author sometimes cleverly disguises this by making the female stubborn and/or attempt independence by making stupid decisions on her own (that the male can therefore correct, in his infinite wisdom, getting angry while doing so, of course). Probably both. Any female vampires in these series are either jealous of the main character, or very evil. Again, sometimes both. But not the males, dag nabit. They're totally awesome and reformed. Just really strong and angry. Though I do wonder why it's acceptable to have a 1,500-year-old vampire male and a 30-something-year-old female, when if the roles were reversed, I imagine people would think it was weird and slightly disturbing. To be honest, I think it's kind of creepy either way. (Also an annoying factor, if I read one more time about the woe-is-me male character warning the female character to be afraid of him and his treacherous and deadly predator strength, while she cheerfully ignores him by intoning, "you won't hurt me," I'll scream. Way overdone, kids. Way overdone.) The promising part about this book is that Diana is just as strong in her own way as Mathew is in his. Hopefully the next few books will be better because this will become clearer.

All in all, the last third of the book really saves itself. Out of 5 stars I'd give it a 3.5, probably. It's worth a read, if you like this kind of fantasy. I mean, I know you probably can't tell from this review, but I did actually mostly enjoy it!