A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness

“Deep in the stacks of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.” Goodreads

Disposition

It was my turn once again to pick a new audible, to help break the monotony of our car journeys. I selected this after flicking through the reviews on the Audible website. One of the quotes which sold me on this was the following:

Audiobook one of the New York Times best-selling All Souls Trilogy – “a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter and Twilight” (People).

I am looking forward to a grown up Harry Potter, with the possibility of a further two books in the series if this sticks.

This seems like a fun read, and while it definitely appears to be a young adult novel, I am excited to get started. I love Harry Potter and would love to find another fantasy series to fulfill that void. I am a little shocked that the audible is almost 24 hours long, which is our longest to date, but I hope it’s a good find!

Editorial

Did I just give almost 24 hours of my life (which I will not get back…..) to this interminable book. It started off promising but quite quickly descended into dull monotony. I will try and explain more succinctly than the author.

On our journey we have experienced a wide range of authors giving varying levels of detail to their tomes, but Ms. Harkness takes this to a whole new level. By the end of this audible I knew every item of clothing our heroine possessed, what outfit matched which shoes and how it felt too physically put it on. We spent what felt like hours listening to her choice of attire to go horse-riding. Too much!!!! This makes me yearn to reread some of the Once and Future King, or better yet The Name of the Rose both of which were heavy on the detail.

I never identified with the main character, despite the best efforts of the narrator. And I completely agree with Brit Boy, I don’t need to know where the zippers are located on her riding boots, what the hem of her sweatshirt looks like, how her yoga pants fit, and if that’s not bad enough, we then had to hear how the heroine FELT in all these different clothes. Blah. 

Having just listened to Michelle Obamas wonderfully empowering Becoming, I was expecting a strong female character, I was wrong. Diana Bishop our heroine is a wuss (definition for American Girl : a weak or ineffectual person (often used as a general term of abuse)). In fact she was so weak I actually didn’t like her, couple that with the romantic interest firmly belonging to the “me man, you do what I say” camp, it once again provided a large tick in the not a book for me box.

I could not stand Diana Bishop. She is supposed to be this very well educated female, one of the strongest witches potentially ever born, yet for the vast majority of the novel (and her life) she denies that she is even a witch, refusing to ever use her powers. However, she meets vampire and within weeks (literally three weeks), she is “married” to him, without her consent, but under some centuries old vampire tradition, and she’s okay with that? I’ve read Twilight, and actually enjoyed it, even if it is not the best role model for our teen girls on what to look for in a relationship but this novel brings that to a whole new and LOW level. If any teens read this PLEASE do not be comfortable marrying anyone within three weeks, that is not NORMAL or OK. And then I remember, our heroine is in her mid-thirties. Are you kidding me? This is not love. This is lust. 

The plot itself could have really made the book brilliant had Harkness cut down on the flowery descriptions and the romance which I really didn’t care about at all. Maybe I am just not the target audience, having never read any of the Twilight books either, I cannot compare. This definitely feels like a Tween book like the Twilight Saga and I really do not know why it has achieved the plaudits it has. The one saving grace is that it has been made into a tv series, maybe they will be able to surgically remove the boring crap and give the tale the bite that it often flattered to achieve but never did.

The Twilight series is so much better than this novel. I don’t even want to compare them. And while Twilight can leave something to be desired in terms of relationship expectations, I would use this novel as an example on what NOT to do for my teenage daughters. What’s difficult is that the underlying story itself is decent. Even the hero of the story I could grow to like, I just wanted a heroine that was like “well that’s not happening”. This is making me sound like a total feminist, but women have fought too hard to get where we are at, and this book feels to have taken a massive step backwards.  

I do not recommend this audible, I am sure that you have better ways of spending 24 hours of your life, after all I could have not listened to anything, and had a more enjoyable time listening to the kids bicker on the school run.

I had a moment when the novel ended right as the action was getting started where I thought I might give the next book a try, but then quickly changed my mind.