Cover Image: The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass

The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass

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Member Reviews

Dnf at 3%. A new form of fantasy where magic and technology clash. Unfortunately, it’s unable to really hook me in from the first few chapters

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Wow. And that’s not even a good wow.

This was a literal hot mess and I don’t even know where to start.

The plot had real potential but it was all over the place and too confusing for me to follow through. The world-building was non-existent, LGBTQA representation was great but there wasn't much else to rave about, and the writing style wasn’t to my liking. I can literally go on and on but I’m sure you got the gist with all the other low ratings for this novel.

Nevertheless, there is something we can all learn from this: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Nuff said.

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The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass by Adan Jerreat-Poole was such a cute read. The story line, the characters, the entire structure of the story kept me on my toes. I couldn’t put it down.

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Oh man I wanted to LOVE this book so much! I do love the characters but it moved at SNAILS PACE which I feel like should be impossible because of how much happens! Like so much happens, and yet it still took forever! Definitely in need of some better editing.

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I picked up this book based on the cover and description alone but maybe should have checked out other member reviews before stepping into this... because I agreed with a lot of the critiques.

Eli had a lot of potential but didn't hit the mark for a great character and her development seemed to lag. The book dragged and the plot wasn't all there for me. It felt like too many different ideas frankensteined together into one incohesive piece. Other characters lacked depth and development and I genuinely only semi-felt interested in Eli.

This could have gone to much better places, and I'm super disappointed that it just wasn't there for me.

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Oh man… I was really hoping to enjoy this book but I just really… didn’t. It fell very flat in my honest opinion.

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I started reading this during lockdown and the the book was dragging for me. I then lost my cousin to COVID which kinda put me in a reading slump and I only just picked it back up and I’m afraid it didn’t get any better :(.

The only reason I kept reading is because Eli seemed to be interesting and what she was up to, but the book was still dragging so much that it took me forever to finish it.

I’m afraid it really wasn’t for me which is a total shame

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I had high hopes for this book. The plot and story-line description sound amazing but I was a disappointed overall.

Eli had so much potential to be a strong protagonist, but she comes off more uncertain and slightly desperate through the story in a chaotic way, especially through the second half of the book.

The plot was difficult for me to understand because Eli is desperate to please those around her and do well so that she can simply exist, but then she starts having some existential crisis during an easy mission. The second half of the book was like someone else just took over and started writing in a completely different style for a new world.

I had a hard time keeping up with what was going on and how the world came together.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for sending a free copy for an honest review.

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A really great book for every young adult. I find a little bit difficult to sympathize with the main character but overall a great read.
3 stars
thank you so much to Dundurn for this arc in exchange for an honest review

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The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass was an okay book. Not going to lie, I was really excited to dive into this because I love the cover and the book summary. I thought this was going to be an intriguing story about an assassin who was made by witches to go into the human world and kill ghosts.

SO, this story started off so slow for me. I can't say it picks up because the entire book just dragged for me. Which, again.. honestly, disappoints the living hell out of me. First off, you meet Eli and she is kind of an interesting assassin. She is probably the only reason I kept reading because I just wanted to know more about her and her little missions. Yet, I was still so bored. Beyond bored and slightly confused.

Besides Eli, we got to meet some side characters. They were okay and kind of riveting but nothing could redeem this book for me. There was lots going on and maybe too much. I really wanted to like this book and I'm sad that I couldn't.

I received this eARC on NetGalley for an honest review.

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The story was fine. Nothing new that blew me out of the water. The premise was interesting and the cover is gorgeous.

Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for the advanced e-reader copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

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I really loved this cover, it is so beautiful, and I cannot stop looking at it, and the plot couldn't be better, I love everything about it.

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When reading the excerpt for this book I expected something very different from what I actually read. I could see the direction that the author was attempting to go for (an Alice in Wonderland type logic based around a magic world) but it came off very confusing and hard to track. The storyline was very difficult to follow and near the end, I felt as if there were several different novels chopped up and randomly inserted into the ending Near the middle there was a nice flow of storytelling in the form of a quest and the characters were getting more depth, but it was torn down by the last 20%. This is the main reason for the little amount of stars given to this title.
On the good side;
The author included very good representation of the LGBTQ+ community. For fantasy novels, many times, the representation feels forced or not genuine and it can be very surface level. This however was not. With the author themselves being nonbinary this is also an own voices story. So overall the representation was very good.
The author also used very beautiful descriptors and metaphors throughout this book. These helped give the book an ethereal magical quality.
This was not a bad book, in fact, it would have been quite good if the plot had been easier to follow. Personally, I believe when a plot is extremely difficult to follow, the book itself falls apart.

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*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC to review!*
I really wanted to love this book, because a rating that low deserves a chance, but alas the people were right. This book's main character was so quirky and different and I really enjoyed her, but everything else was confusing and not written very well. There was a magic system that I never got a grasp on and the political system and social hierarchy was even more confusing. The rest of the characters lacked depth and didn't catch my interest.
Maybe a vague, short, witch book is for someone, but it sadly was not for me.

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I actually ordered a finished copy of this one and I was so on board with it. I dived in and was hooked on the story. I finished it in a day and although the start of this story I was fully enjoying it, as the story progressed I started losing interest. I wished that the story would have been cut by at least 50 pages towards the end. As it just started to drag and I just started not caring about what was going on.

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I really liked what the author was going for and the inclusivity and LGBTQIA+ rep. Fabulous. But I felt like the story was kind of confusing and all over the place. There was a lot of witchy politics and they called all the "worlds" different names and the magic was all over the place. Had some really good things going for it but didn't quite pull it *all* off. I would read more of Jerreat-Poole.

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I tried to like this book because I really liked the idea and the main elements, but it was so confusing at times, and the author tried too hard to make their style interesting, that I couldn't handle it anymore after 35%. I couldn't find any interested and couldn't relate to Eli at any point, and the characters she met just happened to be there for the sake of it. They didn't feel real, no matter how different they seemed to be. On top of that, everything seemed to happen too fast, Eli questioning all her life in no time and wanting to break the rules, but the pace was slow nonetheless.

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I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was a bit disappointed by this one. I was expecting so much more.

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I wanted to like this book... I really did. However, there was so much going on and thrown in with a lack of world building and character development that I just ended up very confused and struggling to follow the story line.

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The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass had SO much potential! Armed with a gorgeous cover and a unique, interesting synopsis, I knew I wanted to read this title, despite it not being my usual genre.

But that's about where the positives end. I really wanted to like this book... but I found myself bored and skipping through to see if it would pick up. I enjoyed the characters, but I felt there was a lack in world building. I found it difficult to understand aspects of the book, which took me out of the story.

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