This book infuriated me, I’m not gonna lie. I really disliked this, and I was going to DNF it, but Twitter wanted a spicy review. So here it is, enjoy my ranty review of A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon!
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Quick Synopsis
Mariel Spark knows not to trust a demon, especially one that wants her soul, but what’s a witch to do when he won’t leave her side—and she kind of doesn’t want him to?
About A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon
Title: A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon
Author: Sarah Hawley
Rating: 1 Star
Genre: Romance/Paranormal
Content Warnings: Parental abuse
Format: eARC
Publisher: Berkley
Date Published: 7 March 2023
Goodreads Description: Mariel Spark is prophesied to be the most powerful witch seen in centuries of the famed Spark family, but to the displeasure of her mother, she prefers baking to brewing potions and gardening to casting hexes. When a spell to summon flour goes very wrong, Mariel finds herself staring down a demon—one she inadvertently summoned for a soul bargain.
Ozroth the Ruthless is a legend among demons. Powerful and merciless, he drives hard bargains to collect mortal souls. But his reputation has suffered ever since a bargain went awry—if he can strike a bargain with Mariel, he will earn back his deadly reputation. Ozroth can’t leave Mariel’s side until they complete a bargain, which she refuses to do (turns out some humans are attached to their souls).
But the witch is funny. And curvy. And disgustingly yet endearingly cheerful. Becoming awkward roommates quickly escalates when Mariel, terrified to confess the inadvertent summoning to her mother, blurts out that she’s dating Ozroth. As Ozroth and Mariel struggle with their opposing goals and maintaining a fake relationship, real attraction blooms between them. But Ozroth has a limited amount of time to strike the deal, and if Mariel gives up her soul, she’ll lose all her emotions—including love—which will only spell disaster for them both.
I received a review copy from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon Review
Okay, so let me start off this review by saying that I don’t think the author is bad, and neither do I think her work is bad. It’s just that some things stood out to me as allocentric, and it made me very uncomfortable.
I know I’m in the minority here, and I am not attacking anyone who loved this book. I simply want to point out what I felt uncomfortable with, and identify some language that’s reductive and that we should stop using.
Let’s hop in.
Language usage
This might contain some spoilers, but I tried to take quotes from the beginning of the book to illustrate my points.
First off, the book starts off with a character telling the FMC that she needs to be fucked because she’s too uptight. “Then conjure a fuck buddy. Seriously, you’re way too uptight about this whole Spark family legacy thing.”
I’m sorry, WHAT? And the characters just breeze past it. No one corrects her for saying such a gross (and misogynistic) thing. The characters act like it’s normal when it’s very much not.
Another example is this quote, said by the same character to the FMC: “Have you asked the gyno to check for cobwebs?” in reference to the FMC not having slept with someone in 5 years. I swear my mouth hung open when I read this. It’s so gross, and once again, the characters don’t point out that this kind of language is straight up a-phobic, and disrespectful. Why would you ever ask anyone that? It makes my skin crawl.
Family dynamics and verbal abuse
Mariel, our FMC, gets a lot of abuse from her family for not being able to perform the same magic as they do. Frankly, she’s remarkably well-adjusted for someone who is constantly verbally abused by her family, especially her mother. And the rest of her family just let her mother get away with it.
Mariel’s mother is a cartoon character. She says the most unbelievable stuff, like “I’ve never seen her so dedicated to her craft! It’s amazing how motivating good dick can be.” As if there was something wrong with Mariel and all she needed was a good dick and she would be perfect.
It makes me nauseous. There’s a long history of asexual people going through corrective rape and this type of language is so aphobic.
Mariel eventually stands up to her mother and sets boundries, but I feel weird that it was the MMC that caused her to do so. It feels like he “fixed” her, which isn’t necessarily the case. He gave her some confidence, but I would have preferred therapy.
Overall story & plot
I felt no connection to Mariel and Oz, and I felt no connection between the two of them. I completely skipped over the sex scenes because it fell very flat. Their whole relationship felt flat. Aside from all the things mentioned above, I didn’t root for them as a couple.
The pacing was also off, and the whole story felt very shallow.
Overall, I didn’t enjoy this, and I can’t recommend it.
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thank you for this honest review Bianca! I was interested in reading this one based on the summary which looked interesting, but the language sounds pretty bad & in general the characters seem so flat, sorry this one didn’t work for you! 👀
I’m sorry this one didn’t work for you and I like that you gave your reasons for not liking it.
I will say that I have read a few “shallow” ARCs lately, and currently, obscene and gross content is applauded as “edgy” and trendy. There’s no creativity behind it. It’s very sad and I hope it’s a trend that ends soon. 😒
Big oof! It really sucks that this book held so many toxic elements. From what I had seen on booksta, it looked cute, but honestly, after reading your review, I’m not going to be reading it. It sounds like there are far too many red flags.
Usually I still recommend that people read the book to make up their own minds, but not with this one. It was just awful.
I have this book on my TBR because the premise sounds good and I’ve been seeing all positive reviews for it. But reading yours… it doesn’t sound like something I’d enjoy. Thank you for the review, I’ve removed this book from my TBR now!