Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)

by Susan Dennard

Review originally posted at Simply Adrift.

Truthwitch was a book I wanted to read because leading up to it's release, everyone was going crazy about it. Once it was released however, a lot of people changed their minds about it, so I put it on the back burner for a while.

My Thoughts

Truthwitch was an interesting story, yet at the same time I feel like it didn't quite reach it's potential. The world building lacked the consistency I was after, it was sparse in places and I found it hard to figure out what the surroundings looked like. A lot of the time I also couldn't figure out who was talking, or which character the part of the book was about.  Safi and Iseult both had such similar voices and thought patterns that I found it difficult to distinguish the two at times. This led me to re-reading paragraphs or pages because I got confused and the story stopped making sense.

The Romance

There's a little romance in this book between Safi and the prince. I really liked their scenes together because they were explosive around each other as if neither could hold on to their composure around the other. Their relationship was rocky and violent at the start, near the end it was all tension and you're waiting for the release to happen.

The Witches

I wanted to know more about the witches! How did they come to be? How does each type of witch use their power? What are they used for? How does cleaving happen? The whole concept sounded really cool, but I found myself constantly asking those questions. There wasn't enough back story. And when there was a back story it was info dumped at the beginning of the book.

Safi was a Truthwitch meaning she could tell a lie from the truth, under circumstances. For example, if someone was saying something that they genuinely believed to be the truth, then her power would automatically think it was true. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. Being a Truthwitch was rare and the synopsis makes it read that everyone would want a piece of Safi if they found out what she was. Throughout the story however, I didn't feel like her being a Truthwitch was that much of a threat. She would reveal to people she was one and they wouldn't be that surprised. But I can see how the plot was shaped around this fact, and I can see how in the next book Safi is going to be used. So it will be interesting to see where this idea goes.

The Story

I found the story started off rather slow. The beginning was info dumping and memories and I was getting bored because nothing was happening! Everything was being explained and right then at that moment none of it made sense because I had no idea what the story was referring to or what it was even about. I was lost right from the beginning.

It was disappointing, I had to go back and re-read the beginning once I had read more of the story and had context to refer to. The story also jumped around a lot, there was so much happening that it got a little hard to keep up.

Overall

Truthwitch was interesting in places, there were a lot of badass scenes and I definitely want to see where the story goes from here. But there were also a lot of things I had problems with and it was a little hard to get through this book which was disappointing.

Always,
Jordon

This review was originally posted on Simply Adrift