Review: Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood
A wickedly juicy debut
Jessica Spotswood’s debut novel, Born Wicked, reads a bit like a cautionary tale of what happens when society allows itself to be ruled by fear. However, there is more to this story than fear, there is mystery and suspense, pretty dresses, bookish heroes and heroines and of course a splash of prophecies, oracles and witches.
Something terrible happened in the 1700s when a group, called the Brotherhood, rose up and eliminated all the witches they could find; burning all the texts and temples and striking fear into the hearts of the people against any woman who might be eccentric or learned or independent. Over a hundred years later, Cate Cahill and her sisters, Maura and Tess, are born into a world where women are treated as inferiors and the Brotherhood’s mission to eradicate witchcraft is still going strong.
Cate fears for herself and her sisters as they are witches. As her seventeenth birthday approaches, Cate finds herself in a difficult situation having to chose between a loveless marriage, a life in the Sisterhood - the female arm of the Brotherhood - and true love.
There were many things I loved about this novel, first, the history. I find that, in order to give the reader background knowledge, authors usually let the protagonist explain, in a dialogue, what happened. The things is, this works sometimes, but if overused, it causes the story to become monotonous. Born Wicked uses many different ways to inform the user of history - through dialogue, entries and Cate’s thoughts. At the end of it all there was a lot of information related, but nothing seemed boring or repetitive.
I enjoyed the pace of the story and the development of the characters - though I wish Tess had a little more page time; she was, by far, my favourite character. In the end, I figured out a few of the mysteries, however, the way the narrative revealed those twists was enough to keep me glued to the pages. I especially enjoyed the reveal about the sisters and the prophecy, it was not what I expected and I’m excited to see where this will take the Cahills in the future books.
There was one thing that I didn’t enjoy - the romantic subplot. There was a love triangle, which was handled well - no pinning over who to choose as the choice was very clear from the beginning - however, I did not see the purpose for it. Hopefully the future books will reveal the purpose that each part of the love triangle plays.
Born Wicked is set in one of my favourite time periods and Jessica Spotswood’s description of the customs and dresses transports the reader away from the present and into the past. I always appreciate it when an author can take me away into the world they created. I’m looking forward to reading more about Cate and her sisters.
Release Date: 7th Feb, 2012 || Publisher: Putnam Juvenile || Details →
Get the book on → Amazon
[review based on ARC from Penguin via LibraryThing]
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