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Consensual Hex
The Craft for the #MeToo era, this debut unfolds a riveting psychological drama shot through with sharp humor and dark magic for readers of Ninth House and The Power.
When Lee, a first year at Smith, is raped under eerie circumstances during orientation week by an Amherst frat boy, she's quickly disillusioned by her lack of recourse. As her trauma boils within her, Lee is selected for an exclusive seminar on Gender, Power, and Witchcraft, where she meets Luna (an alluring Brooklyn hipster), Gabi (who has a laundry list of phobias), and Charlotte (a waifish, chill international student). Granted a charter for a coven and suddenly in possession of real magic, the four girls are tasked by their aloof Professor with covertly retrieving a grimoire that an Amherst fraternity has gotten their hands on. But when the witches realize the frat brothers are using magic to commit and cover up sexual assault all over Northampton, their exploits escalate into vigilante justice. As Lee's thirst for revenge on her rapist grows, things spiral out of control, pitting witch against witch as they must wrestle with how far one is willing to go to heal.
Consensual Hex is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive portrait of a young woman coming of age, uncovering the ways in which love and obsession and looking to fit in can go hand in hand. Lee, an outstanding, magical anti-heroine, refuses to be pigeonholed as a model victim or a horrific example. Instead, her caustic voice demands our attention, clawing out from every page, equally vicious and vulnerable as she lures us, then dares us, to transgress. Dark, biting, and archly camp, Consensual Hex announces Harlowe as a significant talent.
When Lee, a first year at Smith, is raped under eerie circumstances during orientation week by an Amherst frat boy, she's quickly disillusioned by her lack of recourse. As her trauma boils within her, Lee is selected for an exclusive seminar on Gender, Power, and Witchcraft, where she meets Luna (an alluring Brooklyn hipster), Gabi (who has a laundry list of phobias), and Charlotte (a waifish, chill international student). Granted a charter for a coven and suddenly in possession of real magic, the four girls are tasked by their aloof Professor with covertly retrieving a grimoire that an Amherst fraternity has gotten their hands on. But when the witches realize the frat brothers are using magic to commit and cover up sexual assault all over Northampton, their exploits escalate into vigilante justice. As Lee's thirst for revenge on her rapist grows, things spiral out of control, pitting witch against witch as they must wrestle with how far one is willing to go to heal.
Consensual Hex is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive portrait of a young woman coming of age, uncovering the ways in which love and obsession and looking to fit in can go hand in hand. Lee, an outstanding, magical anti-heroine, refuses to be pigeonholed as a model victim or a horrific example. Instead, her caustic voice demands our attention, clawing out from every page, equally vicious and vulnerable as she lures us, then dares us, to transgress. Dark, biting, and archly camp, Consensual Hex announces Harlowe as a significant talent.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 6, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 161 reviews
July 1, 2020
If you're here to read about the drama/controversy surrounding this book: I decided to delete my review because this got WAY more attention than I was bargaining for, and frankly I started getting concerned about my privacy and safety. I know the text of my original review is still floating around the internet in screenshots and quotes, but I'll feel better if I take this down. Thank you to everyone who said kind things, it meant a lot. Be well.
March 23, 2020
Update 3/15/21: Removed the bulk of my review for privacy concerns, but you can get the gist of what happened by reading the rest of the reviews here or searching up any of the articles or twitter threads written in response. DM me if you absolutely need the backstory for whatever reason. Let's let this messy homophobic revenge-porn fanfiction fade into obscurity, yes?
July 1, 2020
edit: check sunny's updated review for the changes that were made to the final, published version. short answer is that it looks like some details were changed to make the similarities slightly less transparent, but the meat of what's awful about this still stands. sunny has more details elsewhere on this page.
like sunny and ash, i was friends with amanda harlowe in our first year of college at smith. we had some interpersonal conflict, lost contact, and, 7 years later, i found that i was blatantly ripped off as the villain of amanda's new novel. i will admit up front i did not read the entirety of this novel (it was legitimately too disgusting), but i was treated to several excerpts by friends of mine who received arcs. i'm not going to yield to the pressure of being articulate about how enraging and hurtful and violating the novel is, especially given that two of my other friends who are featured in it have already laid that out in detail. i'm not going to post intimate details of my life to prove that the author ripped them off with little to no alteration, other than exaggeration to make me seem like a monster for the crime of needing emotional and psychological support for my struggles with mental illness and trauma, and of being a lesbian whose gender presentation was masculine enough that i could be safely conceptualized in the author's mind as essentially a frat bro with breasts (the size of which she can't help but comment on the moment gabi, who is clearly based on me, is introduced). apparently it also helps that i'm jewish and have a "long nose" that can be pointed out as one of gabi's other defining features.
what i really want to talk about is how supremely fucked up it is that this book is being marketed as a nuanced and sensitive take on sexual violence and survivorship when it is, in parts, essentially literary revenge porn. as both of my friends have noted, intimate details of our sex lives were included in the novel with no alteration. sunny mentioned in her review how her character, luna, is objectified at every turn (even more awful given that the character is made an asian-american and is fetishized for it throughout). i shouldn't have to explain how writing a sex scene where your self-insert heroine sleeps with a person you knew for a few months several years ago, then publishing it and making money off of it might cast some doubt on your ability to actually apply nuance to sexual violence and rape culture.
i'm of course not going to pass over the scene where the narrator attacks gabi and bludgeons her with a vibrator in a bathroom, a scene in which there are multiple, clearly intentional parallels drawn to the circumstances of the main character's rape. i honestly can't tell if these parallels are supposed to make us imagine the mc physically assaulting a friend of hers with a sex toy as a symbolic rape, or if we're supposed to think less of her afterward, despite the narration building up gabi as so toxic and dysfunctional as to make the reader feel like she basically had it coming. the details are terrifyingly precise, down to the main character, lee, covering gabi's mouth and digging her nails into gabi's skin to shut her up while she hits "all points of her skull" with the vibrator (doing the rapist one better, who sent lee's head slamming to the ground at just one point of her skull?), then blackmailing gabi so she won't call the police. given that the exchange immediately preceding this scene is recognizably a version of an actual confrontation the author and i had when our friendship was coming to a close (shortly after which a mutual friend confided to me that the author had been telling him how much she wanted to physically harm me), i can't help but wonder if the brutal meticulousness is because this has been a long-standing and oft-revisited fantasy of the author's. all speculation aside, this scene is, in the most charitable of readings, one of physical assault with strong undertones of sexualized humiliation (again, a sex toy as your blunt force weapon? really?) and potentially something far more violating. the idea of people paying money to read about this happening to a fantasy version of me and cheering along as it goes (because can't all be forgiven when it comes to an unreliable narrator?) is extremely sickening. this is nowhere near a nuanced or sensitive take on sexual violence and survivorship, this is something that, if e.g., a coworker wrote about me and sent around on the company listserv, i would have recourse to report as sexual harassment.
- izzy, or gabi, or whatever fake name you made up for me in "conversion camp" when you seemed even more excited about mask-off mocking traumatized queer and trans people
like sunny and ash, i was friends with amanda harlowe in our first year of college at smith. we had some interpersonal conflict, lost contact, and, 7 years later, i found that i was blatantly ripped off as the villain of amanda's new novel. i will admit up front i did not read the entirety of this novel (it was legitimately too disgusting), but i was treated to several excerpts by friends of mine who received arcs. i'm not going to yield to the pressure of being articulate about how enraging and hurtful and violating the novel is, especially given that two of my other friends who are featured in it have already laid that out in detail. i'm not going to post intimate details of my life to prove that the author ripped them off with little to no alteration, other than exaggeration to make me seem like a monster for the crime of needing emotional and psychological support for my struggles with mental illness and trauma, and of being a lesbian whose gender presentation was masculine enough that i could be safely conceptualized in the author's mind as essentially a frat bro with breasts (the size of which she can't help but comment on the moment gabi, who is clearly based on me, is introduced). apparently it also helps that i'm jewish and have a "long nose" that can be pointed out as one of gabi's other defining features.
what i really want to talk about is how supremely fucked up it is that this book is being marketed as a nuanced and sensitive take on sexual violence and survivorship when it is, in parts, essentially literary revenge porn. as both of my friends have noted, intimate details of our sex lives were included in the novel with no alteration. sunny mentioned in her review how her character, luna, is objectified at every turn (even more awful given that the character is made an asian-american and is fetishized for it throughout). i shouldn't have to explain how writing a sex scene where your self-insert heroine sleeps with a person you knew for a few months several years ago, then publishing it and making money off of it might cast some doubt on your ability to actually apply nuance to sexual violence and rape culture.
i'm of course not going to pass over the scene where the narrator attacks gabi and bludgeons her with a vibrator in a bathroom, a scene in which there are multiple, clearly intentional parallels drawn to the circumstances of the main character's rape. i honestly can't tell if these parallels are supposed to make us imagine the mc physically assaulting a friend of hers with a sex toy as a symbolic rape, or if we're supposed to think less of her afterward, despite the narration building up gabi as so toxic and dysfunctional as to make the reader feel like she basically had it coming. the details are terrifyingly precise, down to the main character, lee, covering gabi's mouth and digging her nails into gabi's skin to shut her up while she hits "all points of her skull" with the vibrator (doing the rapist one better, who sent lee's head slamming to the ground at just one point of her skull?), then blackmailing gabi so she won't call the police. given that the exchange immediately preceding this scene is recognizably a version of an actual confrontation the author and i had when our friendship was coming to a close (shortly after which a mutual friend confided to me that the author had been telling him how much she wanted to physically harm me), i can't help but wonder if the brutal meticulousness is because this has been a long-standing and oft-revisited fantasy of the author's. all speculation aside, this scene is, in the most charitable of readings, one of physical assault with strong undertones of sexualized humiliation (again, a sex toy as your blunt force weapon? really?) and potentially something far more violating. the idea of people paying money to read about this happening to a fantasy version of me and cheering along as it goes (because can't all be forgiven when it comes to an unreliable narrator?) is extremely sickening. this is nowhere near a nuanced or sensitive take on sexual violence and survivorship, this is something that, if e.g., a coworker wrote about me and sent around on the company listserv, i would have recourse to report as sexual harassment.
- izzy, or gabi, or whatever fake name you made up for me in "conversion camp" when you seemed even more excited about mask-off mocking traumatized queer and trans people
July 1, 2020
Yikes. I have not read this book, but from the description on Goodreads and Amazon (and from having attended Smith College alongside the author and read other writing by her, both published and not), I can confirm that this book is directly taking real people's trauma and pain and turning it into "camp." The Amazon descriptions of the characters and how obviously they are meant to correspond with my friends would be laughable if it weren't so twisted. The last time I saw Amanda, she was leaving school to better support her needs. I hope she continues to get that support, because it's been almost seven years and it's pretty clear she hasn't been able to process a brief friendship that ended badly.
(To potential readers who are drawn in and intrigued by the premise of queer characters and social justice at a women's college, I recommend checking out the author's short story Conversion Camp, published under the pseudonym A. E. Hopkins--also directly based on my friends from Smith--to gain better insight into how she actually feels about social justice issues.)
(To potential readers who are drawn in and intrigued by the premise of queer characters and social justice at a women's college, I recommend checking out the author's short story Conversion Camp, published under the pseudonym A. E. Hopkins--also directly based on my friends from Smith--to gain better insight into how she actually feels about social justice issues.)
July 12, 2020
I was at Smith at the same time as the author and the people on whom she based the central characters. Even to a relative outsider, it’s blatantly obvious that, as other reviewers have said, the characters in the main coven are caricatures of this real friend group and that she ripped off their actual experiences and traumas for the content of this book. For this reason alone, I have to discourage anyone reading this from buying the book and giving the author any money.
None of this would be forgivable if the book were well-written, but it also fails on the level of craft. The main character has no discernible character arc—she doesn’t seem to grow, or change, or face any real consequences for her actions by the end. (I love an unlikeable heroine, but antiheroes need to be dynamic and evolve no less than traditional heroes.) The other members of the central group suffer from the same problem of static characterization, and any changes in their behavior or attitudes come with no explanation. The magic system has zero grounding and seems to just consist of whatever’s convenient at the time.
The narrative has a ton of mixed messages about both queerness and the impact of sexual violence, and the representation of trauma and mental illness came off to me as lazy and full of cliches. It's never totally clear if it's meant to be sincere, or mocking (or who the text is mocking/whether it's punching down or up), or cynically capitalizing on trends in contemporary fiction.
The author’s choice to make two of the central characters Asian comes off as utterly tokenistic; even setting aside my knowledge that their real-life counterparts are white, their race is barely ever alluded to except in descriptions of their physical attractiveness or the inclusion of the absurd line “gut him with chopsticks” (I don’t know a single Asian who would ever say that). The author doesn’t ever even attempt to deal with issues like the fetishization of Asian women and how this affects their experience of sexual trauma, which is a massive oversight. (The latent racism also shows up in the passage where the main character says that she needs to study colonialism in order to be able to get a job as a historian, which comes off like she thinks it’s only valuable because it’s trendy.)
This book isn’t worth your time. Don’t spend your money on it.
None of this would be forgivable if the book were well-written, but it also fails on the level of craft. The main character has no discernible character arc—she doesn’t seem to grow, or change, or face any real consequences for her actions by the end. (I love an unlikeable heroine, but antiheroes need to be dynamic and evolve no less than traditional heroes.) The other members of the central group suffer from the same problem of static characterization, and any changes in their behavior or attitudes come with no explanation. The magic system has zero grounding and seems to just consist of whatever’s convenient at the time.
The narrative has a ton of mixed messages about both queerness and the impact of sexual violence, and the representation of trauma and mental illness came off to me as lazy and full of cliches. It's never totally clear if it's meant to be sincere, or mocking (or who the text is mocking/whether it's punching down or up), or cynically capitalizing on trends in contemporary fiction.
The author’s choice to make two of the central characters Asian comes off as utterly tokenistic; even setting aside my knowledge that their real-life counterparts are white, their race is barely ever alluded to except in descriptions of their physical attractiveness or the inclusion of the absurd line “gut him with chopsticks” (I don’t know a single Asian who would ever say that). The author doesn’t ever even attempt to deal with issues like the fetishization of Asian women and how this affects their experience of sexual trauma, which is a massive oversight. (The latent racism also shows up in the passage where the main character says that she needs to study colonialism in order to be able to get a job as a historian, which comes off like she thinks it’s only valuable because it’s trendy.)
This book isn’t worth your time. Don’t spend your money on it.
July 7, 2020
I received an ARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
This book was awful. I frankly cannot believe it is being published. It was poorly written and the plot was incomprehensible. The characters are two-dimensional, especially the villain “Gabi Cohen” who is cartoonishly and unrealistically evil—a characterization that verges on anti-Semitic when you take into account the description of Gabi’s “long nose.” The feminist politics feel very flimsy and unexamined, and the plot—I have to reiterate—just makes no sense at all. I don’t think any editors actually looked at this book—it is not fit for publication and reads like a messy first draft. The books it’s being compared to—The Power, My Sister the Serial Killer—are vastly superior and I’m shocked this is being mentioned in the same breath. It’s a mess. Don’t read this unoriginal and sloppy book.
This book was awful. I frankly cannot believe it is being published. It was poorly written and the plot was incomprehensible. The characters are two-dimensional, especially the villain “Gabi Cohen” who is cartoonishly and unrealistically evil—a characterization that verges on anti-Semitic when you take into account the description of Gabi’s “long nose.” The feminist politics feel very flimsy and unexamined, and the plot—I have to reiterate—just makes no sense at all. I don’t think any editors actually looked at this book—it is not fit for publication and reads like a messy first draft. The books it’s being compared to—The Power, My Sister the Serial Killer—are vastly superior and I’m shocked this is being mentioned in the same breath. It’s a mess. Don’t read this unoriginal and sloppy book.
never-fucking-ever
July 17, 2020I was initially excited for this book- queer witches seeking revenge? Hell yeah!
Then it came out that the author took the traumas depicted within the book from an old college friend group. Absolutely not. Will not read, will not recommend.
Edit: One of the commenters mentioned a short story the author wrote if you need insight into how delicately SA will be handled in this book and holy shit.
If this author is truly the author of that other piece, then they can be slam dunked into the garbage. It honestly read the way someone would think a person on tumblr would act circa 2010.
Then it came out that the author took the traumas depicted within the book from an old college friend group. Absolutely not. Will not read, will not recommend.
Edit: One of the commenters mentioned a short story the author wrote if you need insight into how delicately SA will be handled in this book and holy shit.
If this author is truly the author of that other piece, then they can be slam dunked into the garbage. It honestly read the way someone would think a person on tumblr would act circa 2010.
zzzzz-coverporn-etc
August 17, 2020This is genuinely one of the most incredibly horrifying book publishing things I have ever seen, and as someone in this community (and someone who attends an hwc) it absolutely cannot be ignored. While Grand Central presumably had no way of knowing, they need to pulls this book immediately.
Sunny (Luna), Ash (Charlotte), and Izzy (Gabi) all wrote very articulate messages about this.
Sunny (Luna), Ash (Charlotte), and Izzy (Gabi) all wrote very articulate messages about this.
July 10, 2020
Although I do not know the author, I know and care for the people she has at best lazily replicated and at worst leered over or spitefully caricatured in this novel. If you are going to publish a book that draws heavily from real experiences, there is a way to do it that respects the real people that have shaped your narrative. This novel lacks any honour, grace or respect for those people; it is appalling to me that this author ever considered this novel acceptable under the bounds of human decency, let alone a novel that could possibly be marketed as "progressive" in any way whatsoever. Shame on you. I'd give this book zero stars if I could.
July 31, 2020
Strongly advise anyone against reading this book as it is based off of real life people & their trauma - as detailed in the many 1 starred reviews. The publishers should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to go ahead.
July 22, 2020
like. we all want to hex a frat boy at our hwc. but not by exploiting other people jfc harlowe please speak to a therapist about this.
unread-forever
September 1, 2020Can't wait to read this one, it sounds really insightful! The author and publisher certainly come across as strong allies to all women! Amanda Harlowe is clearly an empathetic sort of person, definitely not obsessed with the past, would never try to make a buck off of exploiting people in that past, and just seems like such a loyal, trustworthy, honorable friend!! A role model for all women & authors! I wish her the best of luck - her career's off to a great start!
July 20, 2020
I read an advanced copy of this book, and I wish I hadn't. This book is extremely poorly written -- overly grandiose and meandering prose and confusing and strangely intimate descriptions. I'm incredibly concerned about allegations that this book was based on the personal experiences of individuals the author knew/knows -- it would make sense given the voyeuristic tone of most of the book. I would compare this book to fan fiction, but as someone who reads fan fiction, that would be insulting to that medium. This book is a mess at best and a major invasion of privacy at worst, and I would stay away.
July 1, 2020
I was very confused by the ARC version of “Consensual Hex.” I found the writing obvious and badly developed, the characters to be one-dimensional, and the plot to be very difficult to follow. I struggled to read through rambling run-on sentences multiple times in order to understand.
I am extremely disturbed to hear that the main characters in the coven are very thinly veiled versions of Harlowe’s former friends, and that she did not even bother to change the basic biographical details of these real people’s real lives, and that she is co-opting their personal experiences of trauma that were told to her in confidence. In addition to being plainly exploitative, this is a lazy and uncreative thing for a writer to do.
I strongly agree with the following from Merricat’s review: “…you get a disturbing feeling that’s impossible to shake when you realize that a great deal of this book was based on private events that happened to real people who deserve to not have it sold off and exploited for someone else’s gain.”
I also share other commenters’ very real concerns about the anti-Semitic characterization of the “villain” character Gabi Cohen, and the tokenization of the two Asian characters, Charlotte and Luna.
There is a deep bitterness toward these thinly fictionalized characters on the part of the protagonist and the author that overpowers any semblance of plot, and makes it feel clear that this is more about the author’s unprocessed attachment to and resentment of former friendships than it is about witchcraft, social justice, or survivors of sexual assault, all worthy topics when handled respectfully, and they are not handled respectfully in “Consensual Hex.”
It seems there is no way this book could be published with the disclaimer that the characters in this book are “purely fictional,” as it appears that is simply not true. I have enjoyed many works of successful autobiographical fiction. This is not that. This book is unethical and badly written. It is not worth your money or your time.
I am extremely disturbed to hear that the main characters in the coven are very thinly veiled versions of Harlowe’s former friends, and that she did not even bother to change the basic biographical details of these real people’s real lives, and that she is co-opting their personal experiences of trauma that were told to her in confidence. In addition to being plainly exploitative, this is a lazy and uncreative thing for a writer to do.
I strongly agree with the following from Merricat’s review: “…you get a disturbing feeling that’s impossible to shake when you realize that a great deal of this book was based on private events that happened to real people who deserve to not have it sold off and exploited for someone else’s gain.”
I also share other commenters’ very real concerns about the anti-Semitic characterization of the “villain” character Gabi Cohen, and the tokenization of the two Asian characters, Charlotte and Luna.
There is a deep bitterness toward these thinly fictionalized characters on the part of the protagonist and the author that overpowers any semblance of plot, and makes it feel clear that this is more about the author’s unprocessed attachment to and resentment of former friendships than it is about witchcraft, social justice, or survivors of sexual assault, all worthy topics when handled respectfully, and they are not handled respectfully in “Consensual Hex.”
It seems there is no way this book could be published with the disclaimer that the characters in this book are “purely fictional,” as it appears that is simply not true. I have enjoyed many works of successful autobiographical fiction. This is not that. This book is unethical and badly written. It is not worth your money or your time.
July 13, 2020
I requested this having not known about the controversy surrounding this book.
I only found out after, trying to gain some insight as to the wrap up of the story as I had just finished and was so very confused as to what I just had read.
Let me first start with the book itself.
This book is a bit all over the place, I did want to enjoy it. Thematically it was of interest, magic, feminism, coming of age after experiencing trauma. Its fine writing wise in terms of being engrossing, but I was so very lost as to where this story went towards the end....
Its approach to social justice (LGBTQIA Issues, TERFS, Feminism, Sexual Assault, and abuse) was kind of camp, and sort of working, but then every so often it felt off. I clearly found something about it intriguing as it started very strong, and I finished it in a couple of hours. But I don't know that I enjoyed it per se? Also I genuinely am unclear what happened at the end of this novel...totally fine with having Liesel be an unreliable narrator but a reader should have some idea as to what happened in the book or what's suggested happened!?
Consensual Hex book is very close to being a solid look at self discovery, and mental health but I find myself feeling as though I don't know exactly what I just read.
Then come to find out that the author is being accused of using her former friends' trauma for her writing, down to thinly veiled retellings/characterizations of them I was further put off. Should that be true it would make much of my issues with this book infinitely worse.
I only found out after, trying to gain some insight as to the wrap up of the story as I had just finished and was so very confused as to what I just had read.
Let me first start with the book itself.
This book is a bit all over the place, I did want to enjoy it. Thematically it was of interest, magic, feminism, coming of age after experiencing trauma. Its fine writing wise in terms of being engrossing, but I was so very lost as to where this story went towards the end....
Its approach to social justice (LGBTQIA Issues, TERFS, Feminism, Sexual Assault, and abuse) was kind of camp, and sort of working, but then every so often it felt off. I clearly found something about it intriguing as it started very strong, and I finished it in a couple of hours. But I don't know that I enjoyed it per se? Also I genuinely am unclear what happened at the end of this novel...totally fine with having Liesel be an unreliable narrator but a reader should have some idea as to what happened in the book or what's suggested happened!?
Consensual Hex book is very close to being a solid look at self discovery, and mental health but I find myself feeling as though I don't know exactly what I just read.
Then come to find out that the author is being accused of using her former friends' trauma for her writing, down to thinly veiled retellings/characterizations of them I was further put off. Should that be true it would make much of my issues with this book infinitely worse.
July 24, 2020
So I am not done with this ARC quite yet, and I think I will finish it. But the reviews on this are not so great. This work of fiction is unethical, as it is basically stolen material about real life people, simply twisted to make it look like pure fiction. So for that reason alone, it gets 1 star.
I got halfway through, so I think it counts. Still sucks though
I got halfway through, so I think it counts. Still sucks though
December 3, 2020
it's a no on anything from an "author" who uses past connections in a negative and, from what I've read in other reviews from the people who are basically the characters, an abusive, insensitive manner. Do not recommend and please do not read. Such behavior doesn't deserve a platform.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
July 31, 2020
Very disturbed to learn that this book is based on someone else's real life, including easily identifiable characteristics and biographical details of Harlowe's "friend" she took the concepts and facts from. As a writer, I understand being inspired by true events, but this goes beyond that, and it's entirely inappropriate.
September 10, 2020
Wow. First off, I didn't enjoy the book even before I found out that the author lifted real people she knew at college and their sexuality, traumas, disabilities and minute details of their lives for her characters in this badly written, brutal, bizarre story. Yikes. You can read their one-star reviews that detail this invasion into their lives here on Goodreads to find out more about that aspect.
But even before I knew all of that, I would have only given the book 2 stars. I had to make myself finish it for the purpose of a fair review. It's written so oddly, badly and confusingly. The main character is not in the least likeable. It is filled with endless obscure references that made no sense to include (which I now realize is because these are details about the real people profiled).
I loved the idea of a coven of witches who go after college rapists, but we don't even get that fun kind of book. We get them victimized by frat boy warlock rapists and even by their own teacher who teaches them how to use their magic and then handicaps them from using it.
There is not a single male character in this book who is not a sociopath and rapist, with the exception of the father who is barely mentioned. Men are depicted as monsters, period. There are also no adults who are in the least bit caring or decent. The main character's parents are uncaring, self absorbed, one-dimensional placeholders. Any other adults are peripheral and clueless. Then as I went along, I realized that none of the main characters are pleasant either. Nobody in her world is good. The main character's friends all betray her and are alternately stupid, abusive, shallow, selfish, manipulative, histrionic and uncaring. The main character does terrible things (I don't mind inserting a spoiler here because I don't believe the book should be in print) like helping to murder, dismember and bury her rapist and brutally beating one of her former friends in the head with a vibrator (apparently the author confessed to college friends that she fantasized about assaulting the person this character was based on).
As I neared the end of the book, the only character I occasionally enjoyed was the ghost of the horrible rapist frat boy, who haunted the MC incessantly, sometimes with somewhat humorous comments. He occasionally reminded me of Christian Slater's character in Heathers, an evil psychopath but good with a one-liner. I don't know if we were really supposed to like this guy though. I certainly didn't, and would have appreciated humor from anyone else.
While the book uses all the terminology of social justice, LGBTQ+ issues, the me too movement, etc., it felt almost like it was making fun of everybody involved in these issues, like painting a Valley Girl, mocking vibe on it all.
Lastly, the writing is just bad. The sentences run on like no sentences I've ever seen in a published book. It's told in a bizarre way in present tense. It's written in confusing text, where I had to read paragraphs several times to be sure what happened. The ending makes no sense and is kind of lame. And there's just no fun, no redemptive arc, none of the things that make you enjoy reading a book.
Cross "The Bell Jar" with Heathers and Charmed fan fiction with revenge porn and bad 2010 Tumblr posts, and you get the gist of it. I cannot recommend the book for any reason.
I read a digital ARC of this book for review.
But even before I knew all of that, I would have only given the book 2 stars. I had to make myself finish it for the purpose of a fair review. It's written so oddly, badly and confusingly. The main character is not in the least likeable. It is filled with endless obscure references that made no sense to include (which I now realize is because these are details about the real people profiled).
I loved the idea of a coven of witches who go after college rapists, but we don't even get that fun kind of book. We get them victimized by frat boy warlock rapists and even by their own teacher who teaches them how to use their magic and then handicaps them from using it.
There is not a single male character in this book who is not a sociopath and rapist, with the exception of the father who is barely mentioned. Men are depicted as monsters, period. There are also no adults who are in the least bit caring or decent. The main character's parents are uncaring, self absorbed, one-dimensional placeholders. Any other adults are peripheral and clueless. Then as I went along, I realized that none of the main characters are pleasant either. Nobody in her world is good. The main character's friends all betray her and are alternately stupid, abusive, shallow, selfish, manipulative, histrionic and uncaring. The main character does terrible things (I don't mind inserting a spoiler here because I don't believe the book should be in print) like helping to murder, dismember and bury her rapist and brutally beating one of her former friends in the head with a vibrator (apparently the author confessed to college friends that she fantasized about assaulting the person this character was based on).
As I neared the end of the book, the only character I occasionally enjoyed was the ghost of the horrible rapist frat boy, who haunted the MC incessantly, sometimes with somewhat humorous comments. He occasionally reminded me of Christian Slater's character in Heathers, an evil psychopath but good with a one-liner. I don't know if we were really supposed to like this guy though. I certainly didn't, and would have appreciated humor from anyone else.
While the book uses all the terminology of social justice, LGBTQ+ issues, the me too movement, etc., it felt almost like it was making fun of everybody involved in these issues, like painting a Valley Girl, mocking vibe on it all.
Lastly, the writing is just bad. The sentences run on like no sentences I've ever seen in a published book. It's told in a bizarre way in present tense. It's written in confusing text, where I had to read paragraphs several times to be sure what happened. The ending makes no sense and is kind of lame. And there's just no fun, no redemptive arc, none of the things that make you enjoy reading a book.
Cross "The Bell Jar" with Heathers and Charmed fan fiction with revenge porn and bad 2010 Tumblr posts, and you get the gist of it. I cannot recommend the book for any reason.
I read a digital ARC of this book for review.
June 5, 2020
I wanted very much to like this book, but feel like it needs some serious editing. I loved the premise, and the book started out with a distinct “Down a Dark Hall” feel and I was initially immersed. Slowly though, it starts to break down.
As the characters develop it is hard to tell if the campy approach to social justice issues is actually camp. Is it vaguely comedic interpretation of teens discovering the world, or is it a mockery of the movement? The characters themselves are somewhat one dimensional, until they need to be a bad guy for the protagonist's derision. The plot is sometimes genuinely confusing, as opposed to disorienting for the sake of the narrative. The ending in particular feels truncated and like many details are somehow hand waved away. Regardless of how you interpret Lee’s perception of the events, even assuming she is a classic teen unreliable narrator, it doesn't feel wrapped up properly.
I can't get into too many more examples of where this book misses the mark without spoilers, but it falls short of the campy, yet socially aware, story it could be. This gets so close to exploring the fall out of sexual assault, coming of age as a queer teen, finding a life outside your highschool experience, and living with metal health issues all wrapped up in a clever supernatural metaphor. I still enjoyed it as an easy read with some strong parts, but I wouldn't recommend this one without serious edits. It reads as an un-beta’d, vaguely autobiographical, fanfic (which is 100% my jam) but as a novel, feels somehow incomplete.
As the characters develop it is hard to tell if the campy approach to social justice issues is actually camp. Is it vaguely comedic interpretation of teens discovering the world, or is it a mockery of the movement? The characters themselves are somewhat one dimensional, until they need to be a bad guy for the protagonist's derision. The plot is sometimes genuinely confusing, as opposed to disorienting for the sake of the narrative. The ending in particular feels truncated and like many details are somehow hand waved away. Regardless of how you interpret Lee’s perception of the events, even assuming she is a classic teen unreliable narrator, it doesn't feel wrapped up properly.
I can't get into too many more examples of where this book misses the mark without spoilers, but it falls short of the campy, yet socially aware, story it could be. This gets so close to exploring the fall out of sexual assault, coming of age as a queer teen, finding a life outside your highschool experience, and living with metal health issues all wrapped up in a clever supernatural metaphor. I still enjoyed it as an easy read with some strong parts, but I wouldn't recommend this one without serious edits. It reads as an un-beta’d, vaguely autobiographical, fanfic (which is 100% my jam) but as a novel, feels somehow incomplete.
March 30, 2020
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I really liked the premise of this book, it sounded like a fun, captivating approach to a very serious and real problem that exists in our world.
Unfortunately, however, the book itself did not live up to what I had hoped. It's definitely a creative take, and for that I commend Ms. Harlowe, however the story and its characters were a slog to get through.
The story itself is quite winding, jumping from one scene to the next or from one period of time to the next with no obvious movement between the two. This makes it quite difficult to follow.
I also found the characters really unappealing and hard to find anyone to root for. The main character, Liesl/Lee is quite flat, which is quite frustrating because she has so many obstacles to overcome that would have been a great opportunity to give her more depth.
I also found that the book was trying a little bit too hard to be "woke". There were a lot of mentions of issues like using correct pronouns or transphobia, but then never went any deeper that a character making a passing comment so it felt more like disingenuous lip service rather than a respectful handling of these topics
It's also just not very clear what's going on in the story and why, especially towards the end of the book.
I can't give this a good review from what I read, but as this was an ARC, hopefully the feedback the publishers get means that it can be tightened up before print as it is a genuinely creative idea with some potential.
I really liked the premise of this book, it sounded like a fun, captivating approach to a very serious and real problem that exists in our world.
Unfortunately, however, the book itself did not live up to what I had hoped. It's definitely a creative take, and for that I commend Ms. Harlowe, however the story and its characters were a slog to get through.
The story itself is quite winding, jumping from one scene to the next or from one period of time to the next with no obvious movement between the two. This makes it quite difficult to follow.
I also found the characters really unappealing and hard to find anyone to root for. The main character, Liesl/Lee is quite flat, which is quite frustrating because she has so many obstacles to overcome that would have been a great opportunity to give her more depth.
I also found that the book was trying a little bit too hard to be "woke". There were a lot of mentions of issues like using correct pronouns or transphobia, but then never went any deeper that a character making a passing comment so it felt more like disingenuous lip service rather than a respectful handling of these topics
It's also just not very clear what's going on in the story and why, especially towards the end of the book.
I can't give this a good review from what I read, but as this was an ARC, hopefully the feedback the publishers get means that it can be tightened up before print as it is a genuinely creative idea with some potential.
November 21, 2020
I really, really, really wanted to love this book.
And then I read it. It was wildly confusing, exasperatingly chaotic, emotionally unconvincing, and at times, simply boring. The writing style is very grandiose. The depictions of trauma, rage, and revenge did not at all ring true for me, and actually were sometimes offensive, not to mention some casual racism that I noticed even as a white reader, and some anti-semitism that I definitely noticed being myself a Jewish reader. Don't even get me started on the homophobia and the Overly Sensitive Trigger Warnings for Everything Feminist trope. I read almost the entire book, but in the end, I just couldn't bring myself to finish it.
And then I found out that the author directly based the main characters on her former friends from the same college where the novel takes place, including specific details of their traumas and sex lives that they had shared with her in confidence (confirmed by the individuals themselves, who have come forward publicly, as well as their contemporary peers at Smith). All I have to say is if I could go back in time and un-buy this book, I would. It's one thing to have characters of whom aspects are inspired by real people, or to ask for a friend's fully informed permission to include more specific components of their life story in your fictional work. But to try and publish so many specific identifying details that your own publisher tells you to rein it in... and to publish as much as you can possibly get away with even after that, trauma narratives included? I regret having financially supported such disgraceful behavior.
Please don't make the same mistake I did. Don't buy this book.
And then I read it. It was wildly confusing, exasperatingly chaotic, emotionally unconvincing, and at times, simply boring. The writing style is very grandiose. The depictions of trauma, rage, and revenge did not at all ring true for me, and actually were sometimes offensive, not to mention some casual racism that I noticed even as a white reader, and some anti-semitism that I definitely noticed being myself a Jewish reader. Don't even get me started on the homophobia and the Overly Sensitive Trigger Warnings for Everything Feminist trope. I read almost the entire book, but in the end, I just couldn't bring myself to finish it.
And then I found out that the author directly based the main characters on her former friends from the same college where the novel takes place, including specific details of their traumas and sex lives that they had shared with her in confidence (confirmed by the individuals themselves, who have come forward publicly, as well as their contemporary peers at Smith). All I have to say is if I could go back in time and un-buy this book, I would. It's one thing to have characters of whom aspects are inspired by real people, or to ask for a friend's fully informed permission to include more specific components of their life story in your fictional work. But to try and publish so many specific identifying details that your own publisher tells you to rein it in... and to publish as much as you can possibly get away with even after that, trauma narratives included? I regret having financially supported such disgraceful behavior.
Please don't make the same mistake I did. Don't buy this book.
April 20, 2020
I did not like this book at all. I’m not going to elaborate, since it is not out yet.
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August 1, 2020
So I'm not going to be the first person to say this, but the experiences in this book were taken from REAL PEOPLE and then turned into a campy story without their permission.
Please do not support this book.
I've written a small summary on TrulyBooked about this, but honestly? Just read the reviews and you'll get the full story.
Please do not support this book.
I've written a small summary on TrulyBooked about this, but honestly? Just read the reviews and you'll get the full story.
August 4, 2020
I wish I could give this less than one star. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. It infringes on the personal details of real people without their consent. THIS BOOK SUCKSSSSSSSS
August 5, 2020
I have not read this book nor will I, as it is obvious the author doesn’t have a shred of human decency. What an incredibly vile thing to exploit other people’s traumatic experiences for your shitty self-insert. On top of that, from what I can tell it appears the book just sucks ass anyway. For the record, I am not personally involved with any of this, it’s just disgusting and disturbing to me that anyone would do this. I sincerely hope this book gets pulled. This woman should not make a single cent from this and I hope she has enough humanity to be deeply ashamed of herself. If not, I hope she at least feels stupid as hell for pulling this bullshit.
August 4, 2020
If I could leave 0 stars, I would. Exploiting the true lives of former friends and classmates without their knowledge or consent is abhorrent. This is a slap in the face to assault victims everywhere. Absolutely do NOT bother with this book and especially the author.
August 7, 2020
A gross exploitation of the queer community. This books is literally harming real queer people because of the lack of consent and review. Fuck this person and their shitty work.
August 16, 2020
I have not read this, and I won’t. Please see Sunny, Ash, and Izzy’s reviews for more details.
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