Status Updates From A Resistance of Witches

We aren't even given a super clear idea on what the other Nazi witches believe. They drop a few hateful remarks about Jewish people, but it's not clear if all of them want freedom for witches and also hate Jews and want them dead. It all feels very murky and I wish the author made it clearer what the motives were. The whole plot of this book is just poorly written, it's very clear that this author is new.

It's also so ironic that Sybil & the other German witches want Hitler to win the war so that witches can come out of hiding but Hitler is forcing Jewish people and other persecuted groups into hiding. Apparently nobody cares about how hypocritical that is.

I also forgot to mention how predictable aspects of this book are. From the beginning of the book I already predicted some of the things that would happen with a few of the characters which is annoying. I'm not sure if the author wanted us to predict it or not but it made the read more boring since I had an idea what was going to happen early on.

Writing fantasy means you can do the bare minimum of research since you can create your own magic systems and world that match your ideas. Writing historical fiction however requires more research, even if you're going to take serious liberties in the course of events. Maybe I'm being too harsh on this book but I think we need to be more critical of some of these books that are really just not very good.

Honestly, this book seems like someone wanted to write a book with historical elements but couldn't be bothered to do real research to create an immersive setting. I'm not against the idea of combining fantasy and history, I actually find it to be very fun & enjoyable when executed correctly. This just isn't a good execution.

Also, this book didn't need a romance element. I'm not sure you can even call what it had romance, since there isn't real chemistry between Lydia & Henry that couldn't just be friendship. I also feel Like Rebeccas character might not be that necessary at all. I don't dislike her character, I just don't see why she was needed in this story. It's a disappointing read since witches + WW2 is such a great concept.

For someone who reads a lot of historical fiction, particularly WW2 centered stories, the setting & historical influence is paper thin. Yes, this book mentions the Gestapo, Hitler, Churchill, the hatred & persecution of Jewish people, the French resistance, but it's all mentioned in a very light handed way. I didn't feel immersed or like the stakes were really high (even though they were supposed to be).

I'm not saying this book sucks but wow, it certainly falls short of the premise. For one, the world building isn't nearly as established as I'd like it to be for such an interesting topic. Also, while we know it takes place in WW2 I think the author has been really lazy in making us believe it. It seems like she did barely any research into WW2 to write this book beyond the very surface level stuff.