The Book of Gothel || Somewhat Spoilery Review

[@BrightandBookish]

Oh boy I had a completely different experience reading this book. It is so interesting to me how the same book can land so differently for different readers. I'm a huge plot reader and I loved the first half of the book when we were seeing Haelwise growing up and the different things they were doing to try and cure her "spells" and the logical progression to the other plot once her mother dies as the secondary plot was also related to her trying to figure out the "spells". I also did not feel like she stumbled onto things, she had to make some tough decisions about where she was going to go and what she was going to do, it felt to me like she had a ton of agency. I also think that the other women helping her but refusing to share the forbidden knowledge made perfect sense to me, as they didn't really know who she was but she could prove (through things I can't mention for spoiler reasons) that she had power, so they were giving what help they could without endangering themselves in a world that was hostile to women with power in general. I do agree with you that the "romance" wasn't great, I didn't really need it in the book at all (at least not the second half anyway), and the ending wasn't my favorite, but I gave this book 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 on goodreads lol!

[@RamblinReader]

Yes totally agree! Whenever I see people who end up disliking some of my faves it's always a little bit fascinating to hear them point out what they didn't like and my brain will internally respond "okay but that part was awesome!" The secrecy around the forbidden knowledge stuff definitely logically made sense but at that point the secrets was the one thing I really wanted to know so getting so close just to not hear them had my reader brain protesting! I'm glad you loved this one! It's definitely one that I can understand why it works for those it works for and I hope the right people pick it up :)

[@hannahblackwellbooks]

It’s definitely a character driven story so I totally understand how it wouldn’t work if you don’t like the main character. I mentioned in my review too how worried I was that people were going to say nothing happened 🤣🤣🤣 yes it’s 100% atmospheric and character driven with very little plot. I lovvvvvved it but I knew this would not work for a lot of people. One thing I will say is that I think the author was being very real world accurate about the secrecy in witch circles and occult groups. This was super believable to me personally but I do understand that it could be frustrating to read!

[@RamblinReader]

Yeah I tend to lean more plot driven I think but character driven *can* work....if I was super into the characters. This is definitely not one of those books I read and think "how could anyone like this" because I for sure understand people who love the character driven stuff being much more into this one! (Provided of course they like Haelewise more than I did) Yeah the secrecy was one of those things that falls into the category for me of yes I understand it's realistic this way but also I just wanted some answers to latch onto!

[@MariaMightReadThat]

Yeah, not liking the main character can play such a big part in overall impressions. I'm still hopeful about this one and will be giving it a try but I'm most worried about the guy being married thing, out of everything you said. That's probably going to be an issue for me.

[@KittyAndTheBooks]

This is the first review I have seen of this, so I am interested to see others now. This book is not a high priority for me, but I was interested...

[@hannahblackwellbooks]

Yeah the book was a character study, just meant to be how she became who she was known to be. Oh no! I loved the romance 🤣🤣🤣 Also you might put “full spoilers” on the title 😆 Great review though I loved hearing a different perspective!!

[@RamblinReader]

Oh whoops good point. I definitely intended to keep it less spoilerly than I ended up and my brain did not realize this when I titled it haha

[@hannahblackwellbooks]

@@RamblinReader i totally get it!!!

[@JolienReads]

Oh no, this was on my wishlist... Emphasis on 'was' lol

[@RamblinReader]

Actually I think you'd like it a lot better than me if I had to guess!

[@kthebookwyrm13]

Just finished it and absolutely agree, it was a total dud. So many plot holes and absolutely stupid decisions on the part of the MC, along with a nonexistent plot and a stupid ending. Big disappointment