Book Review: Windwitch
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| Windwitch by Susan Dennard |
♥♥♥♥♥
Title: Windwitch
Author: Susan Dennard
Year Published: 2017
Publisher: Tor Teen
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy
Plot: ♥♥♥♥♥
World Building: ♥♥♥♥♥
Characters: ♥♥♥♥♥
Flow :♥♥♥♥♥
Synopsis:
Sometimes our enemies are also our only allies…
After an explosion destroys his ship, the world believes Prince Merik, Windwitch, is dead. Scarred yet alive, Merik is determined to prove his sister’s treachery. Upon reaching the royal capital, crowded with refugees, he haunts the streets, fighting for the weak—which leads to whispers of a disfigured demigod, the Fury, who brings justice to the oppressed.
When the Bloodwitch Aeduan discovers a bounty on Iseult, he makes sure to be the first to find her—yet in a surprise twist, Iseult offers him a deal. She will return money stolen from him, if he locates Safi. Now they must work together to cross the Witchlands, while constantly wondering, who will betray whom first?
After a surprise attack and shipwreck, Safi and the Empress of Marstok barely escape with their lives. Alone in a land of pirates, every moment balances on a knife’s edge—especially when the pirates’ next move could unleash war upon the Witchlands.
Review*:
I jumped right into Windwitch after finishing Truthwitch, like end one open the other I have 5 minutes to read. However Windwitch was a MUCH slower read for me to get through. There's something about the first half that just seemed to drag on, between switching to different narratives I didn't care that much about to having plots and threads woven into the story for the next few books.
The first POV I want to talk about is Merik. As I mentioned before, he's not my favorite character but at the same time he's not the worst character I've ever read. I had mixed feelings about this "Batman"-esque story line he was given while in Lovats. I think him not being a recognized character in his own capital city gave him a lot of opportunity to help Nubrevna. Though by the end of the story Merik recognizes that he was only seeing what he wanted to see, than being more observant, it was very subtly layed out through the first book and the beginning of this one. When he chose his sister over potentially saving all of Lovats, it was clearly ment to be a pivotal moment for the sibling but it also showed a lot of the characteristics that I really do like in Merik.
Cam I found a little bland despite having so many interesting things about his character. One, despite being born a girl he identifies as a boy. As someone who is not well versed in the LGBT+ world, I know there is a term but I am not familiar with it and instead of potentially offending anyone, I'm not going to try to miss-title. Cam also has vitiligo which is amazing. I really hope that Susan expands on Cam's character in future books because despite not having an identified witch magic, he has a lot of potential to be a strong ally outside of the previously mentioned characteristics.
Vivia I don't really have any strong feelings about her character either. I am extremely happy with the ending pages of the book though. Despite us not having a long emotional attachment to her character, Vivia finding her own voice in leadership and be rewarded with respect was amazing. I really hope she finds happiness both as a leader and in her personal life.
The next POV I'd like to move onto is Safi and Vaness. Immediately I loved Vaness and despite having this heafty title of the most powerful Ironwitch in history and the story of leveling a mountain, we are immediately exposed to her showing weakness, which makes her more human. She cries for her crew, and explains that they were her only family. She came as an orphan to a fullblown empress of a nation. Then when her backs against the wall and she is needed to take charge, she's straight back to the cool, calm leader she is so used to being. Able to negotiate her own escape and save her captors, she's not ruthless she just does what she has to for her own. I'm really interested to see her back in a court setting and how she leads.
I really don't have much to say about Safi. I don't dislike her, but I don't think we yet learned more about her to have much more of an opinion. Same with the Hell Bards. I don't have many opinions or thoughts on any of them.
Finally, the arc in this story I was most emotionally invested in was Iseult and Aeduan. If they are not OTP, end game, mated, whatever I will fucking scream. At the beginning, I was meh about Aeduan and Iseult was still my girl. Watching the two of them work from enemies to allies was interesting because despite Aeduan being very direct, Iseult was calling the shots. Despite her clearly being a timid character naturally, she was out here giving him ultimatums and saving his ass. Which brings me to the best scene in this series so far, Iseult working her Weaverwitch skills to cleave a man and save our Baeduan. This scene makes me realize that Iseult can move mountains, she's just so in her own head that she doesn't really realize how powerful she actually is. I am SO looking forward to seeing how Iseult develops in future books, especially by learning more from Esme. I'm also hoping her POV will help the story line momentum as far as what the Raider King is doing, because it seems clear he has his hands in each of these POVs.
Overall, the story line was really slow and I think that's because we were building more relationships rather than building the plot. On Tumblr I saw Susan mention in a Q&A that Sightwitch and Bloodwitch were easier to write than Windwitch which makes sense with the way Windwitch kind of slagged. As I mentioned before, Susan very much is present in her writing and if she was having issues writing Windwitch, it would explain the pacing. Because she's so involved in her work, I don't really fault the pacing because it's something I myself can relate to creatively.
I'm glad Sightwitch is a shorter novella because I can't wait to get into Bloodwitch.
Synopsis:
Sometimes our enemies are also our only allies…
After an explosion destroys his ship, the world believes Prince Merik, Windwitch, is dead. Scarred yet alive, Merik is determined to prove his sister’s treachery. Upon reaching the royal capital, crowded with refugees, he haunts the streets, fighting for the weak—which leads to whispers of a disfigured demigod, the Fury, who brings justice to the oppressed.
When the Bloodwitch Aeduan discovers a bounty on Iseult, he makes sure to be the first to find her—yet in a surprise twist, Iseult offers him a deal. She will return money stolen from him, if he locates Safi. Now they must work together to cross the Witchlands, while constantly wondering, who will betray whom first?
After a surprise attack and shipwreck, Safi and the Empress of Marstok barely escape with their lives. Alone in a land of pirates, every moment balances on a knife’s edge—especially when the pirates’ next move could unleash war upon the Witchlands.
Review*:
I jumped right into Windwitch after finishing Truthwitch, like end one open the other I have 5 minutes to read. However Windwitch was a MUCH slower read for me to get through. There's something about the first half that just seemed to drag on, between switching to different narratives I didn't care that much about to having plots and threads woven into the story for the next few books.
The first POV I want to talk about is Merik. As I mentioned before, he's not my favorite character but at the same time he's not the worst character I've ever read. I had mixed feelings about this "Batman"-esque story line he was given while in Lovats. I think him not being a recognized character in his own capital city gave him a lot of opportunity to help Nubrevna. Though by the end of the story Merik recognizes that he was only seeing what he wanted to see, than being more observant, it was very subtly layed out through the first book and the beginning of this one. When he chose his sister over potentially saving all of Lovats, it was clearly ment to be a pivotal moment for the sibling but it also showed a lot of the characteristics that I really do like in Merik.
Cam I found a little bland despite having so many interesting things about his character. One, despite being born a girl he identifies as a boy. As someone who is not well versed in the LGBT+ world, I know there is a term but I am not familiar with it and instead of potentially offending anyone, I'm not going to try to miss-title. Cam also has vitiligo which is amazing. I really hope that Susan expands on Cam's character in future books because despite not having an identified witch magic, he has a lot of potential to be a strong ally outside of the previously mentioned characteristics.
Vivia I don't really have any strong feelings about her character either. I am extremely happy with the ending pages of the book though. Despite us not having a long emotional attachment to her character, Vivia finding her own voice in leadership and be rewarded with respect was amazing. I really hope she finds happiness both as a leader and in her personal life.
The next POV I'd like to move onto is Safi and Vaness. Immediately I loved Vaness and despite having this heafty title of the most powerful Ironwitch in history and the story of leveling a mountain, we are immediately exposed to her showing weakness, which makes her more human. She cries for her crew, and explains that they were her only family. She came as an orphan to a fullblown empress of a nation. Then when her backs against the wall and she is needed to take charge, she's straight back to the cool, calm leader she is so used to being. Able to negotiate her own escape and save her captors, she's not ruthless she just does what she has to for her own. I'm really interested to see her back in a court setting and how she leads.
I really don't have much to say about Safi. I don't dislike her, but I don't think we yet learned more about her to have much more of an opinion. Same with the Hell Bards. I don't have many opinions or thoughts on any of them.
Finally, the arc in this story I was most emotionally invested in was Iseult and Aeduan. If they are not OTP, end game, mated, whatever I will fucking scream. At the beginning, I was meh about Aeduan and Iseult was still my girl. Watching the two of them work from enemies to allies was interesting because despite Aeduan being very direct, Iseult was calling the shots. Despite her clearly being a timid character naturally, she was out here giving him ultimatums and saving his ass. Which brings me to the best scene in this series so far, Iseult working her Weaverwitch skills to cleave a man and save our Baeduan. This scene makes me realize that Iseult can move mountains, she's just so in her own head that she doesn't really realize how powerful she actually is. I am SO looking forward to seeing how Iseult develops in future books, especially by learning more from Esme. I'm also hoping her POV will help the story line momentum as far as what the Raider King is doing, because it seems clear he has his hands in each of these POVs.
Overall, the story line was really slow and I think that's because we were building more relationships rather than building the plot. On Tumblr I saw Susan mention in a Q&A that Sightwitch and Bloodwitch were easier to write than Windwitch which makes sense with the way Windwitch kind of slagged. As I mentioned before, Susan very much is present in her writing and if she was having issues writing Windwitch, it would explain the pacing. Because she's so involved in her work, I don't really fault the pacing because it's something I myself can relate to creatively.
I'm glad Sightwitch is a shorter novella because I can't wait to get into Bloodwitch.
*There may be spoilers in this section of the review. If you do not wish to be spoiled, please stop reading.
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