A great rollicking read that I worry may drive away straight viewers with its perfect title. Too bad for them! This was a beach read before Pride month even hit and I suspect it will make a hoot of Netflix adaptation.

Note: I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is so campy, and there were so many parts that made me feel connected to my community while reading. At the same time, there were quite a few scenes that made me very uncomfortable. Just some sexual violence that I didn’t feel added anything to the book. This book was big on tell don’t show which also made it hard to sink into. I think unfortunately it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the digital copy of this book; I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Content warnings as mentioned by Storygraph users: Graphic: Drug use, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Grief Minor: Homophobia, Violence, Sexual violence

Disco Witches of Fire Island is set in the late 1980s, and it deals with themes like queer identity, LGBTQIA relationships, and emotional resilience. The focus is on the community during the height of the AIDS crisis (which was actually called the “gay plague” by unfeeling people and even the press.) Because of that, there’s a lot of emotional depth to this book that focuses on the historical part of the LGBTQIA community during the Ronald Reagan years, whose administration did very little to help.

There’s a fantasy element to Disco Witches, and while I normally veer away from that genre, I appreciated that aspect of the story. There’s so much grief and trauma to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but ultimately, Disco Witches also has themes of hope and queer solidarity.

I have mixed emotions about this book. It was written very well, and it transported me back to the late 1980s, when I was a teenager, and it seemed like the AIDS epidemic was on the news all the time, with little response from the White House, but there were some parts that could be triggering, like the sexual violence. I would still recommend the book if you don’t have problems with heavy content.

I'm grateful to the publisher for offering me a free copy but this was not the book for me. I had the hardest time with the repetitiveness as well as the dialogue.

The premise is intriguing—a MM romance and disco-era magic during the AIDS crisis—but the fantasy elements in Disco Witches of Fire Island did not have a point. The central magical plot is never clearly explained and adds little to the story, often distracting from the emotional core rather than enhancing it. The love story was completely rushed, and the book was surprisingly less sexy than advertised.

I definitely picked this one up for the title but I am so glad I did! It was wild witchy fun but still felt really rooted in the reality of queer history. In some chapters I felt like dancing, in some I felt like crying, but I always wanted to keep reading.

DNF 18%

I don't like giving star ratings to books I don't finish, but there's no option to leave it unrated! I requested this book because the premise sounded really interesting, but unfortunately the execution fell flat for me. I find the writing style dull and I'm not interested in any of the characters. I kept trying to push through to at least get to the magic elements, but it's just not holding my attention, and I think it's time to move on.

Really wanted to like this, but the characters felt immature and childish, regardless of their ages in the book. I think the author did a great job of setting a realistic world that unfortunately revolved heavily around the AIDs epidemic.

This book sounded fun and I had hopes of it being a nostalgic trip to a late 1980s summer. Add in a touch of magic and it seemed like a great fit. However, I knew within the first few pages that this was not a match for me.

Joe is 29 and is stagnant in life. He has dreams of being a doctor, but has made no move to finish the undergraduate work he needs for that. Some of that has to do with the loss of his boyfriend to AIDS, as this book takes place during a volatile time in that crisis. Joe befriends Ronnie and the two spend the summer in Fire Island, although when Joe gets there, it is not at all as expected.

The writing style and tone were off for me in the portion I read. We start in Joe’s point of view, but then quickly shift to almost everyone that comes on page. Sometimes this was done by chapter and sometimes we were in a different point of view within the same scene. It wasn’t confusing so much as an awkward way to handle scenes and it was too many viewpoints for me.

There is a magic element woven into the story, as Joe meets two older men as he arrives in Fire Island. Everything was a mystery with these men and I couldn’t be sure if they were actually witches or had mental health issues.

At halfway through the book, I still knew this wasn’t for me and chose to stop there. This one might work for a different reader.

Fire Island, 1989, a place where gay men and women could feel a little freer while the AIDS epidemic raged on.
I am a little late with my review because I was on a cruise and had little time to read, but I came home and finished today.
As others have stated, this is not a book for everyone, but the themes of grief and love are universal.
Joe and Ronnie meet at a gay bar in Philadelphia, become friends, have a tepid hookup, and decide to spend the summer on Fire Island as bartenders. The jobs fall through, but Joe meets two very gay men and is invited to live in the attic of their house.
They get him a job as a bartender, and he becomes part of a family. He does not believe the stories that his friends belong to a coven of witches.
AIDS has cut a swath of death through the community, and how each character deals with this moves the story forward.
Joe has lost his first love and his grief and the mystery around the actual truth of the relationship, as well as how the witches look after him propel the story forward.
The climax is quite exciting, and many of the characters have life changing epiphanies.
I would recommend this book to liberal minded people who will not be surprised by the gay characters and suggest that though this is specifically a gay book, the themes are universal. I hesitate to say this as in a discussion of another specifically gay book someone mentioned the universality of the theme, and some of the gay members objected to that. Read the book and make your own decisions.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the EARC. This is my honest opinion.

How could I resist a book with a title like this? My thanks to Alcove Press and NetGalley for the advance copy!

In 1989, Joe and his best friend Ronnie plan to spend the summer working and playing at the gay mecca of Fire Island Pines. Ronnie is looking for a sugar daddy, while Joe realizes it’s time to move on from grieving his late boyfriend Elliot, who died of AIDS.

When Ronnie’s promised job and accommodations both fail to materialize, Joe meets Lenny and Howie, two older gay men who are housecleaners on the side. They take Joe under their wing, and although they’re tremendously kind and generous to him, they seem to have a lot of secrets and quirky habits. What are they hiding?

Howie and Lenny are part of a coven of disco witches. They use dance to conjure up protection for the younger gay men who might become overwhelmed by the availability of sex and drugs on Fire Island. Both of these have destroyed too many men already, and they’re committed to protecting Joe. But the coven has been depleted by the loss of many of its members to AIDS, so they’re not as powerful as they once were.

While Joe works as a bartender, he finds himself attracted to a bisexual ferryman, and tantalized by a muscular man that keeps disappearing. Lenny and Howie try to warn Joe away from the mysterious hunk, saying that he represents impending danger. Will the disco witches be able to keep everyone safe?

This was such a fun, poignant, nostalgic, and steamy book. I can’t pass up anything set in the 1980s, and when you throw in a little magical realism—plus disco—I’m hooked. I really enjoyed this, and it made me think back to those we’ve lost.

When I tell you that I hate to give this a low rating, I mean it. This book had so much potential to me. When it came to all the witchy stuff I actually think this book was pretty good. The way the magic worked was very interesting, the plot surrounding it pretty intriguing, and those scenes were extremely atmospheric. However, it was just such a tiny part of this book, it couldn't fully save it. On top of that I also think this book has some interesting discussions around the HIV/AIDS epidemic as well, and I do think it is a recommendable read because of that.
However, as mentioned before all of that ended up being such a small aspect of this book. This was just such a slog to get trough as the author just kept waffling on and on and on about things that just did not matter. The narrative felt so incredibly bogged down by it, and the truly interesting elements of this book didn't get a chance to shine because of it either.
On top of that we also have extremely flat characters. They are very one dimensional, very unlikeable, and overall just blend into each other. There is such a large cast, and none of them (not even our main character Joe) is memorable, in my opinion. Why couldn't we have spend all this time we were doing nothing at all developing these characters more? That is also why the romance fell flat to me. It just happened extremely quickly, and had no developement at all. On top of that we of course have such unnoteworthy characters so of course I couldn't also understand what they saw in each other.
So yeah, overall I think this book is just one massive waste of potential, and I truly hate that it turned out that way. This deserved so much better!

Literally, this book is exactly what you would go into it thinking, simply because of the title. Gay witches, 80's, disco, but it also touches on some very heavy, serious topics, which really added depth to the character development. Disco Witches of Fire Island was a beautiful read.

Many thanks to Alcove Press for a complimentary eARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Joe, heartbroken after losing his boyfriend to HIV/AIDS, is convinced by his friend Ronnie to spend a summer on Fire Island, working as a bartender by night and enjoying the freedom of a gay oasis by day. Things get off to a rough start when Joe learns that there is no bartending job or place to stay. Luckily, he comes across two quirky, eccentric, and downright weird house cleaners who offer him a place to stay and even manage to find him a job. Little does he know that his new housemates are disco witches whose power extends from and draws upon the the Great Goddess Mother and the joy and power of disco. Joe is thrust into the heady world of gay Fire Island as he deals with the trauma of losing his boyfriend, the prospect of new admirers, and the spectre of something that threatens his life.

This novel is ambitious. It deals with very serious themes like the HIV/AIDS epidemic which decimated an entire generation of queer people while also bringing a levity and brightness through its focus on queer joy, found family, and liberation. Despite the darkness that faces Joe and the disco witches, the story is suffused with light refracted through the disco ball of diverse voices and characters. I appreciated that this novel is somewhat hard to categorise -- not quite memoir, not quite fantasy, not quite romance -- and so it doesn't rely on the same tropes that some books have come to use. Characters are relatable, diverse, and deeply flawed, making them seem more real; they are clearly written with great care and affection. For readers who identify as queer, the book is hopeful and joyful in the face of darkness; for readers who don't identify as queer, the book is a window into the difficult navigation of queer identity, belonging, and community.

Above all, this is a novel with a lot of heart. Joe's internal struggles with trying to move past his boyfriend's death (and the events leading up to it) are genuinely heartbreaking. The disco coven are quirky and eccentric, but the strength of their bond to one another and to protecting the queer community is moving and inspiring. Even Ronnie, whose missteps lead to no small amount of frustration and sadness, has his moment of stepping up and defying social expectations of what a young queer man should look like and behave.

I've rarely come across a book which is able to move from the deep pain of heartbreak to overwhelming queer joy, from total abnegation to lust as Disco Witches of Fire Island. What a blessing the Great Goddess Mother has offered to us readers in the form of this novel! Let yourself be led by the magic and sorrow of 1980s queer disco magic on an unforgettable journey.

Whimsical and brash in the way only the best of camp can be. The setting, the vibes and the particularly gay male voice doesn't seem to have any interest in catering to anyone except gay men. Which is great, but I'm only adjacent as a non cis queer. It's not really heartwarming but still charming, and I can appreciate the story as what it is, but not really felt connected or invested in specific characters. Excellent and fun setup and premise and title though

i had a lot of fun with this. its a unique, heartfelt story that tells you exactly what it is and lives up to its expectations. Blair created a world and community that felt real and vibrant.

the strongest work here is all the characters. Joe is a great lead, and his arc plays well into his own personal issues but also issues facing the community at the time. and every single person on that island was thorough and well characterized. and i loved the found family that was built with everyone.

and god, i LOOOOVE disco. who doesn't?

this a very original and compelling novel. it all felt so authentic. great way to kick off some summer-ish reading.

A disclaimer, first: I'm not sure "Disco Witches of Fire Island" would have landed as hard for me if I hadn't lived through the 1980s as a young queer person and wound up with a number of dead friends. But I did, so I can report that Blair Fell brought me right back to the grief and the desperate fear of those days, when everywhere queer you went seemed to be populated by young men with purple spots on their gaunt faces, and on their heads AIDS hair, unmistakably fine and thin.

By 1989, when the book is set, AZT existed, but all the other treatments addressed just the opportunistic infections, not the virus itself. So when one of the Disco Witches, Howie, prophesies to Joe, who's afraid to love an HIV+ man, that not everyone who has the virus at that time will die of it, Joe can only take that on faith. Joe has an arduous journey from hopeless grief toward willingness to rediscover love and joy; he gets there, but it's enough of a rough ride that while I'll accede to the ad copy's characterization of the book as romantic, no one should go into it expecting a genre romance.

Something I especially liked about "Disco Witches" is that besides its historical vividness about the early days of AIDS, it also presses exactly hard enough on the divide between well-off assimilationist gays (mostly male, mostly white, mostly "masculine") and the more radical queer community (imperfect, sure, but with more room for people of color, for femmes, for women, for openly kinky folks). These days I'm (wince) a legally married, monogamous homeowner, but when Blair Fell mentioned the Disco Witches' copy of "The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions" I could see the cover as clearly as if I were holding it my hands again. I think my copy's still around somewhere. Time to dig it out again, yes?

Thanks to Alcove Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

Delightful. In the midst of the devastation of AIDS, there's nothing left to do but laugh, find friends who love and care about you, and go right on with your pursuit of the merman who runs the ferry to your magical home.

We've all been there—don't front.

The kind of matter-of fact tone telling this wildly off-beam from consensus reality story is my jam. The men, reeling from their individual and social losses, are perfectly imperfect in their responses to new stressors while remaining open to changes. Circumstances aren't changing much in 1989, but the Disco Witches are vibrating to brighter days coming...if they can summon them up.

It's not like they're not optimists, all these people. You do not go to Fire Island to end it all from depression...as Joe discovers. They've been bitch-slapped by life as we gay men were all through the first ten or eleven years of that pandemic. It wasn't showing more than glimmers of being solved, so many many blessings went unremarked. I hope y'all can see, based on 2020's broader slap, how tough one had to be to keep it together.

Love did keep us together like the awful Captain and Tenille song smarmed. "There is no friendship without failure," a truism I read here, ran through my mind as Ronnie behaved like a dick to people who accept him as he is; then it really hit me: all the friends I've ever really loved have forgiven me my failings, and I theirs. Howie and Lenny, the titular Disco Witches, embody this ethos as they journey on past their disco heyday into a world they still love, but from the outside now. Protecting these new boys is easiest from the perimeter, guys. It's quite moving seen from my perspective, and will probably not be notable to thirtysomethings.

I'm very sure this book is not remotely heterosafe. There's a lot of just...not for y'all...information and opinion.

Babyqueers encouraged to check what the elders got up to. We weren't always old, my little chickadee. *nostalgic sigh* The read was fun and is a well-aimed summertime/Pride Month/beach read. Well done, and well worth your time and treasure for the fun it gives.

This was enchanting and lovely, the perfect book to get me in the mood for summer! I am sometimes not super taken with books based on NYC as someone who has never lived there and doesn't plan to, but I really enjoyed this depiction.

I was hooked from the beginning!!
It was amazing and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.