The Orphan Witch by: Paige Crutcher

I did not enjoy this book. At all.

It had such an intriguing premise. It was exciting and the first eight percent was written well. Persephone is an orphan who grew up unloved and without being able to make eye contact. Why? Well, if she did it long enough–a few seconds–it caused people to do horrid things to themselves. One person dumped a fresh pot of hot coffee on themselves, another tried to walk into traffic.

I was eager to see where this story went.

Then we meet the other two characters. And they’re witches and Hyacinth is an absolute pain. Anytime chakras are mentioned I check out. The way it’s handled here in the Western part of the world is just a distortion of something beautiful that was appropriated from another culture. So it’s a big peeve of mine.

Another pain is bad characters. I don’t mean evil. I don’t mean cruel. I mean bad. People you don’t care about. Characters you can’t enjoy or sympathize with.

I couldn’t stand them. And then there’s the tonal issues in the book. I couldn’t tell if parts were meant to be funny or serious. If I was even meant to like the characters. They just didn’t click.

The plot was incohesive and slow. Once Persephone reaches an island that’s supposed to be where her only friend lives, the plot tanks in pacing. It’s awful. I’ve been reading a few books at once and getting back into this book was difficult. I didn’t want to finish it.

I recieved this ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

One (1) star.