This book had a lot of buzz surrounding it when it was released and I was anxious to see what it was all about. I was curious how I'd do with the genre; this is not one I typically choose (fantasy is probably my least favorite books to read - I am not imaginative enough for it I suppose).

There were things I did and did not like about this book...

Likes: How it dealt with prejudices. A sticky topic, but overall, a decent grasp of them. The author took her story and she owned it.

Dislikes: I wasn't a huge fan of Elloren. I wouldn't say I hated her, but I definitely did not love her. That always makes it more difficult to read. I also hated some of the side, one-dimensional other characters (like Fallon).

Overall, I didn't think this book deserved the criticisms I had read about, but it also wasn't a favorite of mine.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was such a delightful read. The characters were beautifully described and the story was interesting. Wonderful job.

This book is positively Potter-worthy!
Laurie Forest's fast-paced and character driven novel kept my attention from page one, all the way until the end. I am eagerly starting the second book in the series today.
This was a book I just couldn't put down.

I couldn't put this book down. I loved the balance of magic, coming of age, political and social drama. While certain elements were somewhat expected (I stayed up until 3am one night until a certain point in the plot happened) I still found the title very unique. At times there might have been too many characters being introduced; however, I am aware this is a series so maybe some of those who had smaller roles will become bigger elements later in the series.
I believe it could be very helpful in current times to assign to high school students to talk about various issues, or use it in a book club. I'd recommend this title to any library looking to build their YA collection or those looking to read books similar to Holly Black titles or Harry Potter. I can't wait to continue the series.

Wow! This has got to be one of the most controversial and entertaining books I've read in a long time! I abs adore this book! I need to go out and buy the act print and put it on my bookshelf so anyone can read it and have a discussion /debate with me.
This book is full of colorful fantasy characters. Think mixture of Harry Potter's World and Avatar world together.
Sure it contains a lot of things that'll pisses you off. But you know what, it's happening in OUR world too. There's prejudices (every single one of us experience one one time or another so don't give me that hogwash that you've never been prejudiced before), slaves,human and sex trafficking, wars, I can go on and on about it. You just have to read the book!!

I was excited to read this book. However, I found the plot lacking and the characters were very one dimensional. I don't think I would recommend this book, even though I do like YA fantasy.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with a ARC copy of this book. This is my honest opinion.

DNF at 45%

I was really looking forward to reading this book, and I'm sad that it didn't live up to my expectations. What can I say? In this book, the characters lacked depth, and the plot had not an ounce of originality. Even worse, it was boring and slow paced. This book could have been summed up in 300 pages, but instead, it was that doubled, which resulted in pages and pages of unnecessary descriptions and dialogue.

*sighs*

This was not my cup of tea.

Basic YA fantasy, there was nothing stellar either way. Would easily recommend this to a customer in my store looking for a new fantasy series. The really nice thing about this book is it is appropriate for a wide audience- upper middle grade through adult.

The Black Witch introduces an interesting heroine who must figure out how to deal with magic, prejudice, race relations, religion, social standing, and love all while working and going to school! After being orphaned at a young age, Elloren -- the granddaughter of the most famous and powerful witch in generations -- was raised in obscurity by her uncle in the country, and is now attending University in another country. Although her wealthy and politically-powerful aunt (the sister of the man who raised her) pressures her to "wandfast" (an irreversible magical engagement), Elloren promised her uncle she would finish her education first and so, cut off from the family money, must pay her way through school by working in the kitchens. I found the world -- its people, its politics, and its magic -- fascinating and complicated, and enjoyed the story very much.

The most jarring part of this book is that it immediately launches into the deep end -- at the start of chapter 1, five different races/groups are introduced in the span of two paragraphs. A few pages later two more groups are referenced in conversation without any description whatsoever. The differences between these groups is central to the story, so don't skim through the descriptions!

This is very clearly the first in a series of books. I like that the heroine had time to grow, learn, and change (sometimes for the worse, other times for the better). I didn't like the giant plot point that was introduced in the prologue (giving the reader information the main characters don't have) and then never dealt with -- the book ends with the characters as oblivious to this game-changing information as they were at the start.

I plan to read the sequel and probably any further installments (I would guess this becomes a trilogy or even a longer series).

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very good plot. This book hits on a lot of things going on in the world today. Isolation, bullying, discrimination, etc. This is a very detailed book with lots of different characters, heart fastening scenes, and plenty of suspense. I would recommend this book to everyone! It's definitely worth the read!

Hold on- you're telling me book twitter drama was actually over-the-top, misjudged, and unfair? What sort of nonsense is that?

Yes, you may not have been around for it, but I was active on twitter when the Black Witch was about to release, and controversy was swelling. Head of it was now-disgraced Tristiana Wright (author of a book that ironically has the same issues), and one particularly long (good) review. People were rating it one star without looking at it. We all kind of took it at word, and well, quote- there's plenty of unsavory quotes to take from this book.

I didn't preemptively rate it like some folks I knew, but I did reference it in a school essay about 'genre fiction and the dangers of allegory.'

I'll break down the short of it here, then do the book review proper: this book is vehemently hated and rejected because of racist views. The worldbuilding is heavily based on various fantasy races, and the main character belongs to one that is strict about 'purebloodedness'. She begins racist, as is her whole society, and learns very slowly over the course of a long book. The world is also sexist and homophobic.

However, the book itself is aware of all this. It's aware these are all bad ideas, and is very clearly a story about unlearning prejudice and ingrained ideas. It could have done a lot of things better, but it means the opposite of harm, and has been judged far too harshly.

"You haven't followed politics because you haven't had to. And it shows."



PLOT OVERVIEW
Elloren Gardner is a Gardnerian, one of many, many races and species in the world. Gardnerians believe they are the one chosen people of their creator, have had a history of war and oppression by various other races, and are now enjoying a period of relative power in the world. They magically bind in marriage contracts at young ages, despise race-mixing, and hold a very sexist, conservative society.

Elloren's grandmother was 'The Black Witch', a hero to her people, who rose up during a period of war and helped bring the Gardnerians back to power and form their own nation. Elloren is a splitting image of her grandmother, but has no magical powers herself. She lives in the country in relative isolation, until she's sent off to University.

At Uni, she has to work with Urisk (a race traditionally kept as slaves and servants) in the kitchens, live with Ichal (winged people, demon-seeming) in her dorm, and go to class with Elves (elves), Lupines (werewolves), Kelts (Irish people?) and some mean-girl Gardnerians. She's been taught and told her entire life other races are impure and horrible, and at first everything seems to be true about this. The kitchen staff hate her. Her roommates hate her. The lupines are animal-like, the elves are aloof snobs, the kelts hate her due to a long history of war- she spends a bit getting more racist, in fact. The saving grace is she always has some empathy, still, even when she's going 'it's okay for me to hate my Iscal roommates- they hate me back!'- she flinches when others torment needlessly, she can't stand mistreatment of a child, and she is bothered by the capture and sale of Kelpies.

It takes about the 50% point for her to make amends and become less racist. This is, admittedly, the size of some books (300 pages out of 600). Still, she begins to make amends. She realizes the history she knows doesn't match up with the history other races have, and reads differing accounts of various wars. She learns about other religions. She starts to see and understand the wrongs her government has been doing, and consider that the stories she grew up on, even the ones about her grandmother, were not entirely true.

She befriends those who she was rude to, and does apologize to them. She actively feels bad for her previous actions and works to right them, even if it's slow going. She ends up turning against her increasingly-fascist government and joining the underground revolution with her friends.

I'll talk more about the race stuff, but it's a clear arc where she learns about the world and actively changes because of it. It just took too long, too slow, and with some harsh racist stuff in between. Also, as the book is first person, it's uncomfortable to be in her unpleasant head for most of the book.

FANTASY RACISM
Fantasy racism is a huge trope. It's in everything, and this is far from the first book/movie/world/lore to have 'well these are the black people, these are the whites, these are the other whites, and these are the asians' type world building. I just summed up Grisha/Six of Crows with that racial breakdown, and that's the darling of YA bloggers. Of course, YA fantasy is usually a lot gentler than this book about dealing with race. Grisha has the Asians, Africans, Russians, Nordics, Dutch, and Irish as its major countries- the worlds are built entirely around these and borrow names and words and culture from them. However, Grisha is a YA fantasy that doesn't really point out cultural and racial differences- honestly, kind of gladly, it pretty much exists in a world without racism, where wars are based on myths and magic powers, not the stuff we tend to have IRL.

Black Witch was an alarming read in how unsubtle it was about being about racism. It's very, very race and racism focused. It's uncomfortable to head so much about heathen races, impure blood, race-mixing, and other such ideas, in a YA fantasy book. It does not pull any punches in hammering these ideas in, and even though they are also obviously bad ideas (readers know that, the world shows it several times), it sometimes seems a bit much. The same ideas several times in a row ('Everyone hates Gardnerians like me! I can hate them back!') gets tiring, and well, hateful. The race themes are not handled with much tact, especially in the first half of the book.

Similarly in the first half, there's a long montage of events that is just 'everyone hates Elloren Gardner'. The Gardnerians already have a history that is focused on them being enslaved/oppressed several times, and then as readers we have to deal with a series of scenes that confirm this to the main character. I want to call it a victim complex, but then, she is the victim in all these events- Elloren is harassed and bullied by everyone at University, for a short time. The issue I more have is that the author included so much of this, confirming Elloren's racial bias and for a while painting an image of 'hey, I guess other races do suck' to the reader.

At this point, like Elloren, we just know the Gardnerians are an oppressed people who have fought hard for their freedom, even if they are racist dickbags. Having these views then reinforced and supported by the narrative is uncomfortable, especially since this is a big-ass book. If there was less time spent on this part of the story, it would feel a lot less... uncomfortable.

Yes, confronting racism is meant to make you uncomfortable, but I might be phrasing it wrong. In this case, it's uncomfortable to see racial bias seemingly confirmed, even if it turns out to be false. Later, as Elloren learns history isn't what she thought it was, there's a better sense of uncomfortableness as she confronts her past. This early part? Unnecessarily long and unpleasant.

FANTASY RACISM TWO
There's so many races and species in this book. As common, most are based on real cultures and myths from the world.

Kelts: I have no idea. They have red hair and green eyes so I guess they are Irish. They are more chill with mixed-raced people than Gardnerians and look different, but just appear to be 'human'. I guess they used to enslave Gardnerians, so they hate each other.

Gardnerians: Black hair, green (?) eyes, only allowed to wear black. Super religious conservatives. Skin so white it glimmers in the light.

Amaz: Amazons. They live in the woods and only accept women, of any race.

Fae: Just fae. There's like 20 types at least with different powers, but they were all 'shipped away' after the Gardnerians won the war. Bizarrely, the book uses a very explicit holocaust allusion about them, and since they are illegal and any with fae blood are in hiding and denying it, fae appear to be... fantasy jewish?? Gardnerians also have Jewish ties in how their narrative/religion is written out, so it's all very bizarre.

Kelpies: Seal women who can take off their cloak to be human. Enslaved and sold as sex slaves in Gardneria.

Elves: Elves.

Iscal: Demons!! Well, it's really vague what exactly they are, since they seem to just be born randomly from any set of parents, and there's no society or country of them. Hated everywhere. Black feather wings.

Vu Trin: Women with magic tattoos, also they have brown skin.

Lupines: Werewolves, or people who can turn at will part wolf. They have packs and run around naked and have different moral values.

There's also even more than this. It's kind of too much.

For the most part, the book is pretty good about having a variety of magical races without clear origins to real cultures. Of course, they are all fairly cliche fantasy races (you could slip this world into DnD or skyrim easily), but compared to the 'It's just Russia' of the Grisha series, there's no obvious cultural tie-ins with Gardnerian societies, or really any of the others (werewolves always seem to lean toward native american appropriation, but these guys surprisingly don't).

Of course, the Big Awkward is how the story takes from IRL events more than any of the cultures. Yes, this book sees an evil leader rising to power in a conservative country, whose followers wear white armbands, stand for racial purity, and seek war. And yes, hidden by history, a group of people took a group they hated to somewhere secret and killed them in a way similar to a shower.

Hey, can we talk about that? That's uh, awkward. Bad term for it, I know, but it is. The point of all of this, and the book, is that this is bad. Hey guys: the holocaust was bad and Hitler was bad. The book is earnestly trying to have some grave seriousness in its fantasy world, which is again bold for a YA fantasy. Does it work, or is it just offensive? Uh...

That's sort of the tagline for most of this book, I think. By the second half of the book, I liked the main characters enough, and even had a favorite (Diana). The nastiness of the world, and growing fascist order, was clear to the main character, and something she was now seeking to upset. She had new friends, and acknowledged how history is wrong, and her friends had to do it too- both to her, and to others. Every country and race and group in this book had a different account of history and religion, and they do talk to each other and acknowledge that. They also, of course, realize their legends are wrong. Ichals, demon people? They chill. Lupines aren't wild animals. Gardernians aren't (all) stuck up prudes. Et cetera.

Maybe it's the low expectations, but this book was completely fine. It meant well, and didn't do that badly, even if it was playing with a very delicate subject, perhaps not as carefully as it should have.

Okay, will talk more about the rest of the book now.

WORLDBUILDING AND CHARACTERS
Okay, ignoring all the race stuff, this book had some issues with names and worldbuilding. There's too much of it. Too many races, countries, regions, cities, and people. We meet person after person, constantly, and for the life of me I can't remember half the worldbuilding. Beyond that, I suppose I know enough about each core faction/race/place to get by, but man, there's too many.

I don't know if having a map would have helped me, since my review copy didn't have one. Maybe? I simply lost track of all the islands, areas, and countries that kept getting mentioned, not to forget the people.

There's so many people in this book. The book itself is too long and slow going, but man, are there too many people even then. Siblings, family, friends, classmates, professors, people in passing- for some time it felt like every chapter brought up a new character, and some would flatly be irrelevant to the plot, others coming suddenly back. By the end you get a good feel of the main crew (perhaps due to how long the book is), but even then there's a ton of them.

Elloren- Main character, apothecary/violinist, former racist

Rafe- brother (hunting)

Trystan- brother (gay*)

Aislinn- Standard nerdy friend to Elloren, Not Actually Asexual As It Seemed

Diana- werewolf, brash, into Rafe

Jerod- other werewolf, into poetry and Aislinn

Ariel- edgy Ischal, loves birds

Wynter- quiet Ischal, does art

Yvan- rude love interest to Elloren, kelt but secretly not a kelt

Tierney- fae in disguise

Andras- Vu Trin boy, very very late addition to the gang, possibly only black character

That's just the. Main friend team. Not counting a selkie and a dragon.

Other key characters include:

Lukas- charming but evil love interest to Elloren, evil

Fallon- Mean girl, powerful, evil

And so many more!

(*gay. This book received the label of homophobic. As an executive gay, guys, that's not true. The world is homophobic, and the main character, when she learns her brother is gay, is not that supportive and shocked about it. Yes, she could have done more, but she's taking this long to unlock her racial prejudice. This is a society where anyone who doesn't fit in is put to death, so she reacts poorly at first to the news her brother is gay.

She calms down and pretty much gets over it, though she's ignorant of what it means, really, and worried for his wellbeing. It's not a very out of place reaction, even if Elloren acts like an idiot, she's acted way worse over the course of the book, and is clearly chiller by the end).

WRITING/ROMANCE/WHATEVER/CONCLUSION
For a book this long, it went surprisingly fast. Yes, a bunch of hours and some on and off reading, but I think I took it down in a few days max. I detest books this long, don't doubt it, but the writing style is honestly good, engaging, at times pretty pleasing. It moves along well enough, with okay event pacing.

Story wise, the pacing is a horrible grind. The first 10% has quite a lot of stuff, then Elloren goes to Uni. At Uni horrible stuff happens to her, but the pacing slows to a trickle for a very long time. Even when she starts unlearning being a racist slob, at the 50% mark, any real plot action starts closer to 85%, and the climax is essentially at the last chapter. Minor events and drama are spaced out enough that something is always happening, but there's very little substance to a lot of the book besides Elloren being bullied by Fallon/in general and small slices of romance drama.

Elloren is first courted by Lukas, who is pretty clearly evil. Surprisingly they make out within a few minutes of meeting each other, and he is pretty down to be married off to her (it's normal to not meet or know who you're being married to in their culture). He's the most eligible bachelor around and wanted by Fallon, the local mean girl, but he only has eyes for Elloren. Despite making out a couple times, Elloren asks him to wait to get pledged together ('wandfasted') on request of her uncle.

Lukas is clearly an aggressive asshole who is happy to hurt anyone who bothers Elloren (he mutilates a chicken and threatens a toddler), and Elloren is fairly aware of this. She's also kind of aware she doesn't care that much, since by the time she's on her unlearning racism spree, he hasn't been around in a few months. Still, she likes going out with him because it bothers Fallon.

Lukas is pretty obviously evil, and like, racist evil, so that's no good. Still, he's a little more interesting to deal with then Yven, the other love interest. Yven starts out extremely hostile to Elloren, but begins working with her once it's clear she isn't actually horrible. You know, it's a nice arc for friendship, but I don't feel any romantic link besides Elloren constantly telling me how horny she is for him, so I'm not really invested in their relationship. He's half-fae, or something, but strikes me as a pretty boring character for someone who is around most of the book.

I can't fully diverge if this book was any good, or just way better than I had been told (and expected), so a rating is hard. I went with 3 stars, it might be 2.5, it could even be lower. This is a very long and at times very boring story about a girl at a magic university, but everyone is very racist to everyone else. The writing is good.

The one thing I've really learned is not to trust twitter. I don't, much, really, but this experience has helped solidify it.

I did like a number of things about it, more so later on, and am interested in reading the sequel. It'll be interesting, at least.

Apparently, this book was at the centerpiece of a lot of controversy upon its release. I never heard about it but I wasn’t big in the book review circle at the time. By reading the few hundred pages I did, I can see why. The racial allegories in this are ham-fisted at best and offensive at worst, and it’s at its worst for a majority of the book.

Needless to say, I couldn’t finish this one – 600 pages of an MC that was constantly victimized/bullied, it was extremely repetitive and all the world building fell by the wayside and suffered for it, I wasn’t immersed enough to want to wade through all that angst and based on many of the other reviews I read, I really didn’t miss much.

Thank you to NetGalley for these ARC’s in exchange for my honest opinions!

It is a shame that many have forgotten that critical engagement is key to good fiction and how we learn about reality through fantasy worlds. It is no different than that of what JK Rowling did with Harry Potter and muggles.I don't know how this got so blown out of proportion, especially when the second book aims to show the protagonist character arch revolting against the social norms of racism she observes throughout the first book.

However, I won't be requesting an arc of that book. Call me not strong enough being a newbie in the book review world. I apologize for my inexperience. I truly do. However, the vile intensity that I have seen going back and forth over this series frightens me. It is not something I want to throw myself in the middle of over blogging. I don't get paid to blog. I don't even get hard copies of the books I read. It hardly seems worth being black-balled, being labeled a racist and receiving death threats.

I do hope that things come around. Where this double standard started I have no idea. If we can't let characters start one way and grown and change overtime, how will we ever let them do so as people in the real world? Even if lets say there wasn't an arc where the protagonist eventually see the error of her aunt and the racist views around her, there have to be villains and fights between good and evil otherwise how would we learn to recognize evil?

This book is great. I really love how the author took a sheltered and intolerant protagonist and had her interact intimately with people she was taught were evil. I love that Elloren seeks out information about these prejudices. She becomes an anti-oppression revolutionary, in her way.

The Black Witch surprised and delighted me with this narrative of confronting privilege. This is something we all need to do and I love that a fantasy novel might help people self-reflect that wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

Free ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Oh man, I really wanted to like this book, but I'm calling it quits at 42%.

It's a great concept, which is why fantasy authors keep coming back to the trope - a young person is kept from their magical heritage until they come of age and are then embroiled in a huge world-changing plot they're entirely unprepared for. Harry Potter, obviously, is the best possible example of it being done well and being hugely popular.

The Black Witch tries to follow the same mold, except fails in one glaring manner - none of the characters are likable and everything happening feels horrible and hopeless. Elloren, the main character, isn't just naive, she's ignorant. She's showing signs of wanting to change that and I understand this is the first book in a series, but I'm nearly halfway into the book and the author is still introducing characters and concepts.

I'm putting Laurie Forest on my watch list and will try the next book in the series. Fingers crossed this is like Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy was for me - the first book was impossible to get through until I read the second book and confirmed there was something more coming.

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did! Can't wait for the sequel. A must read for YA fans of all ages.

Become instantly sucked into the gardenarian world in this unique book. Full of unique characters and a new world, earthia. This could be the next Harry Potter.

A highly enjoyable YA fantasy. It reads as a fantasy allegory about acceptance or people different from oneself. The characters are well developed and the plot fast paced. No good conclusion st all though which I hate. Give me at least a minor plot closure.

The Black Witch by Laurie Forest will unsettle some. It is both fantasy and allegory. As a fantasy, The Black Witch provides intriguing characters, excellent world-building, and a suspenseful plot. As an allegory, it is an examination of a xenophobic world that ascribes to a superior race doctrine and of the young people who, despite their differences and long-held prejudices, learn to accept others and commit to a resistance of the regime.

Most of Gardneria still reveres the Black Witch who saved them during the Realm War, but Elloren has been sheltered from that sycophantic admiration. She has also had the advantage of her uncle's care which has shielded her from the worst of a society that degrades minorities.

When Elloren finally gets her wish to attend university to study to be an apothecary, she meets the kind of prejudices her country has instilled. She must acknowledge that those prejudices are reciprocal: those that vilify other cultures are vilified in turn. Being the granddaughter of the Black Witch is admired by Gardnerians, but other cultures despise the connection. It isn't an easy lesson, but Elloren does learn, slowly and painfully, that preconceived ideas about other races works both ways.

Allegories can be preachy, but The Black Witch provides interesting characters and a suspenseful plot that we know will reach beyond discrimination of different races/cultures (Elves, Fae, Lupines, Kelts, and "mixed breeds") to something far worse.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, even as I felt it to be a bit didactic, because it so clearly fits our own era of divisiveness and fear of others. As a YA novel, it has both good lessons and an exciting story.

Read in July; blog review scheduled for August 17.

NetGalley/Harlequin Teen

YA/Fantasy. May 2, 2017.

The black witch
Laurie Forest
It was kind of hard to get into this book but I enjoyed it and the magic and witches.
I don't think it was the best book but wasn't the worst.
3 stars