Reviews with content warning for Dysphoria - The Witch King

Reviews tagging 'Dysphoria'

The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon

20 reviews

bookishchef's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I wanted to love this so much.
And part of me does. The characters were great, I loved the representation and I thought Wyatt was a really enjoyable narrator. The writing style was good too...

But the plot was all over the place. The pacing was inconsistent. And the story couldn't seem to focus on literally anything. To the extent that the main plot point of this book doesn't get a resolution by the end.

I thought Wyatt acted a bit old for his age too. A 17 year old with multiple years of sexual experience and sexual partners? Like... it isn't impossible and I guess some teenagers do mess around a lot but idk.

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cryptidstar's review

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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mxemma's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book was enjoyable in some ways, but suffers from a whole lot of tonal dissonance. It felt like every couple of pages we swung from fluffy fanfic romance (there was only one bed!) to horrifying gore and betrayal. The writing itself is beautiful, but I think cutting a few lines and a couple plot-twists would have made the story flow more smoothly and strengthened the book as a whole. They may be setting up the sequel, but the ending felt rather abrupt because of it.

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stormeno's review

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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warlocksarecool21's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I thought the Witch King was an interesting take on the Fae and how they usually appear in fantasy novels.
Overall, I thought it was a fun story even though I had some issues with it.
First, I enjoyed that queerness was present and centered throughout the entire book and that it wasn’t added on or minimized like in other fantasy novels. I thought the magic system and the Fae’s origin was really interesting and it’s something I hope to read more about. I also really enjoyed the characters, I thought Emyr and Wyatt were so cute together and I adored Wyatt’s friendship with Briar. Although there were times that I felt that the story would have been better if the characters, especially Wyatt and Emyr were in their 20s instead of high school age but it didn’t bother me that much.

I did have some issues with the writing style and narrative. There were times where I thought the dialogue/Wyatt’s inner monologue were too juvenile for my taste, and it came off as very fanfic-y. It wasn’t necessarily what they were saying but rather the way in which they were saying it. A lot of the language used was so Gen Z/Tiktok slang and meme language and at times it was kind of irritating like it just took me out of the story. And I felt that the author tended to over-explain the symbolism, like most people should be able to see the parallels between transphobia and queerness with how the witches were treated in the fae world, but the author decided to literally spell it out for us. In regards to the plot (other than it was kind of a generic YA fantasy at times) I felt that the pacing was off sometimes and I thought the ending was rather rushed, especially with Wyatt and Emyr’s third act break-up and reconciliation (hate hate hate that trope). I still think it’s worth a read, it’s nice to have a queer fantasy that subverts a lot of the popular tropes in the genre. I do hope the next book will be stronger than this one, as I think the characters and story concept are really interesting.

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ryankaybee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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lyd41's review

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a super fun read. The protagonist is hilarious and I love the inner monologue from this writer. Literally I was laughing the entire book. Even with how funny it was, the plot and characterizations never suffered!

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