I love Tanya's no-nonsense attitude and how quickly she is able to assess a situation and shut it down. She is a very plucky character and it serves her well throughout this adventure.
There were a lot of twists in this story that I did not see coming, but it was a great story and an epic adventure that had a great ending.

I look forward to reading more of Maxine Kaplan's work in the future.

A fast fun read, but I wish this was aged up, shortened, and went more cozy. Biggest issue was that the pacing was slow and the story progession was all over the place to where I had to reread paragraphs to get a sense of where I was and what was going on.

This was a fun book. I did find it slowed down a little bit in spots but i mostly enjoyed this book.

This book was such a fun read! Wench is a funny, heartfelt novel. I loved the LGBT representation, the strong female characters, and the concept. However, the story-telling was bumpy and very confusing at times. I'd love to read more by Ms. Kaplan because her voice is very entertaining.

I really enjoyed the storyline in world building in the novel. I also really liked the characters. I thought this was a solid read, and I will definitely be reading more by this author.

I did not finish this book, I couldn't get into the story because of the writing style wasn't for me. I kept trying to pick this up but I couldn't get into it.

This is so funny and witty. I loved the storyline and Tanya's will to do whatever it takes to save her livelihood. 10/10 would recommend!

A tavern wench, an ice queen, a volcano demon, a thief, a captain of the guard, and a magical feather are at the core of Kaplan’s Wench. Tavern wenches are not generally the heroines of ya fiction, but Tanya is not the traditional tavern wench. Tanya has run the tavern owned by her benefactor since he rescued her when she was abandoned by her mother. However, once he dies, Tanya discovers that he has not left a will and the tavern’s supplies are quickly confiscated by shady Queen’s guardsmen who are transporting a mysterious box to the capital. Tanya joins the guardsmen on their trek to the capital determined to ask the queen to grant her the deed to the tavern. Once upon the road, the group is robbed by a nimble female thief who shows Tanya the contents of the mysterious box before disappearing. The contents of the box dominates the rest of Kaplan’s tale of fantasy, magic, and the will of a tavern wench to determine her fate. Kaplan’s work is compelling but feels somewhat disjointed. There are three distinct segments to Kaplan’s story and unfortunately the second segment does not continue to build upon the secondary character relationships introduced in the first segment. When the secondary characters appear again in the third segment, the relationships do not feel as genuine. Overall, the powerfully depicted feminine characters in Wench are a joy to see develop and the casual acceptance of same sex relationships is depicted exceptionally well. Recommended for fans of Daughter of the Pirate King.

The premise for Wench was a good one, but unfortunately the book didn’t live up to expectations. So much happens and so many characters were introduced in the first half that just as I would get accustomed to what was happening, it would go in a different direction. This made the story less engaging and the characters difficult to connect with.

A sassy, spectacular YA story about a girl who can and will do anything - in a magically fun fantasy world.

I was drawn to this book for the historical fantasy aspect, but the fun colors of the cover also drew me in. Like other readers, I found my focus on the book felt mixed. This could be due to age, since I am much older than a YA reader, and some YA still holds my attention, while some does not.

I got this mixed up with a book about someone working at a RenFaire but ended up reading further and liking it anyway.

Fun read! Fun characters! Fun story! Fun magic! Lots of humor! I really enjoyed this one. I did have some issues with the story and the magical world, but it was still attention-grabbing.

This was really cute. I loved the characters and the plot. The LBGTQ representation was awesome (even if I wanted more of it). That said, it was a bit disappointing. The pacing was a little weird and I had a hard time following the story at times. Overall, still a fun read, just not a new favorite.

Despite trying to read this ARC multiple times, I simply could not get on with it - I'm not sure whether it was the main character specifically, or the whole setting, but it's a DNF for me.

This was a fun read! There was great humor while letting the lead be unapologetically female. It hit all the notes with humor and kept this reader interested to the last page.

Looked cute but didn't have the chance to read it. Based on the description, I would probably recommend it to teens in my library if we had a copy.

I was really excited by the premise of this book. It sounded like it was right up my alley, but I had a very hard time getting into it. I ultimately decided to DNF around 50% because I just kept setting it aside to read something else and just didn't have the desire to pick it back up. I am sure there are readers who will love this, but unfortunately I just didn't connect with it.

This started off so strong. The magic is really interesting. The magic system isn’t really explained in detail but its written in such a fun way. I especially love the idea of magical runoff happening in random places because of overuse of magic by untrained magicians.

I love our female protagonist’s personality. She’s funny, independent, and fierce. She takes control over her situations with determination. However, the strong character and magic wasn’t enough to keep my attention. By the 50-60% point in the book, I had lost all interest. I could tell the plot was supposed to amp up but we spent so much time meandering with nothing substantial happening that I lost all interest. I rarely DNF and I tried to pick this up several times before I decided to give up. This has promise but it didn’t work for me.

Unfortunately I was unable to finish this book. From the description it seemed to check all the boxes I love in a YA fantasy, but for me it simply was not an engaging read. I didn’t connect with the characters or plot and ended up putting it down after about 125 pages.