Witches Steeped in Gold Review

Hi friends! Today I’m coming at you with a bit of a controversial review. I was disappointed with Witches Steeped in Gold. Which really makes me sad because it was one of my most anticipated book of the year. Let’s jump into my Witches Steeped in Gold review!

5 Books that should be TV series!

Title: Witches Steeped in Gold

Author: Ciannon Smart

Rating: 2 Stars

CAWPILE:

Genre: Fantasy, YA

Content Warnings: Blood, death of a parent, death of a sibling, emesis, mind control, physical abuse, rape (mentioned), torture, violence.

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Harper Teen

Date Published: April 20th 2021

Goodreads Description: Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom – and vengeance.

Jazmyne is the Queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.

Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But power is intoxicating, revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain – except the lengths they will go to win this game.

I received a review copy from Jonathan Ball Publishers. All opinions are my own.

Purchase Links

Find the purchase links here!

Witches Steeped in Gold Review

I’ve decided not to CAWPILE this book and just write some of my thoughts down. I don’t want this post to turn into a rant, but it might. Let’s see where this goes. Now I don’t want to bash this book at all. There are a lot of good reviews for this out there, so I’ll link some here.

Worldbuilding

My first and major concern in this book is the worldbuilding. It was all over the place. Nothing is ever explained and it’s all just so hard to follow. And I’m not talking about the Creole elements, I really enjoyed those. There were some amazing references to Jamaican culture and I learned a lot from it. I’m talking about the fantasy elements. I felt so dumb reading this book. It felt like I was reading the second book in a series.

Now, this might sound like a juxtaposition, but the worldbuilding is really good. You can tell Smart poured everything into it and that she really knows what’s going on in her world. She thought about the smallest details. She just fails to carry it over. Like a professor who’s a subject matter expert but struggles to teach the class.

The main problem was also the magic system. I have zero understanding of it. We can’t even infer any meaning from the context, but we aren’t given any context. I don’t want authors to hold my hand, but I need some help at least. Smart created this beautiful, magical world, but struggled with carrying it over.

Writing/Plot

This brings me to my second point. Nothing happens. And I mean that literally. Every important event or conversation happens off-page. For example, the Yielding is made to be this big, important event. Important enough for one of the main characters to decide to commit murder. But we never actually see any of it happening. The whole thing happens off-page.

There are weird time jumps and it was just jarring to read. The first 400 pages are all waffle. The writing isn’t bad, it’s just hard to follow sometimes. I also think the publisher did this book dirty. The synopsis does not describe the book at all. I expected something totally different and I didn’t get it. One of the reasons I am so disappointed in this book is the synopsis not describing it accurately. And I think that’s on the publisher.

Characters

There were a few things about the characters that didn’t entirely sit right with me. For some reason, I thought this book was sapphic? I don’t know where I got that impression, but it’s not. Jaz also makes a comment about how liking girls instead of guys would be better because they’re softer, and that’s not okay. Ira and Jaz also shouldn’t have been the main characters.

Smart’s side characters got so much more backstory and personality. Madyson and Vega deserve their own book and I would 100% read that.

Overall this book just wasn’t my cup of tea.

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