Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - The Near Witch

It is no surprise to me that I loved and adored this book. So far everything I've read by Schwab I have adored. Sometimes when I read books that authors wrote much earlier in their career, I can sense that they are still coming into their own. But in this book, she already feels to have an understanding of her craft and I would not have guessed this was written so early in her career without the forward saying so.

As with some of the other books I have read by her, I adore, love, and root for the main characters with everything in me and feel intense dislike and disgust at those who seem to give no effort to hear and understand what is being said to them.

This audiobook version includes at the end the story of Cole and it was painful to hear the full extent of what led to his coming to Near.

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sofiaaeelizabeth's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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alhargrave1's review

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book is FILLED with beautiful prose. Each character is well thought-out and fully formed. throughout it, I felt the main character’s range of emotions as though they were my own (a plus, for me). This book is beautiful and complex and exactly what I was looking for!

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snapeygan's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

As always, VE Schwab doesn’t disappoint!! I’m a big fan of all her work, and her first novel isn’t different from all her other books!

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dhh08's review

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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caughtbetweenpages's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I was pretty tremendously underwhelmed with this book, which is a shame because my batting average with Schwab is usually great. I'll chalk this up to Victoria being Really Quite Young when she wrote this book, and it being her debut novel, but it really is baffling to me that we go from this to Vicious (which is a masterpiece). My main problem with this story lies in the pacing. The Near Witch felt exhaustingly circular mainly because the same basic thing happened on a loop throughout the entire storyline: our protagonist, Lexi, feels stifled by the sexist traditions of her small village, goes into the woods (they're a metaphor for self determination and freedom, I'll give you that one for free), and then just as she's on the cusp of figuring out something important, she's drawn back to the village. Sometimes, there's a boy that goes with her. Sometimes, she has to sneak past her overbearing uncle. But that loop is literally the entire plot. While some repetition could have been used to great effect given the fairytale-esque vibes of the story (the dark wood, witches on the periphery of town, children going missing from their beds while the town sleeps...), it just happened far too often and in such a way that it seemed like we were just trying to take a story that really only had the meat in it to fill a novella and beef it up into a full length novel.

I could see bits and pieces in here of who Schwab becomes as an author--their penchant for writing Outsiders getting In, and women who buck up against gender expectations, definitely are planted in this story, and the short story of The Ashborn Boy that's included at the end of this edition of this book is actually really great and demonstrates that she was capable even then of writing compelling character motivations and doing tight plotting--I just don't know that this book is quite there yet.

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lovelymisanthrope's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

I picked this up a couple years ago because I am on a mission to read everything Victoria Schwab publishes.
"The Near Witch" follows a bold young girl named Lexi. Lexi knows the old stories of the Near Witch, but she thought it was just a scary story to scare little kids. But, when a stranger arrives in a town where there are never strangers, and children begin to go missing, Lexi begins to question everything she thought she knew.
I really enjoyed seeing Victoria Schwab's first book because it really made me appreciate how far she has come in her craft. This book is definitely a solid story, and it has some of the fantastical charms that her more recent books have, but I could definitely tell that this work was one of her firsts. This story felt very fast-paced, and I did not always agree with the characters' reasonings or motivations. For example, Lexi seemed to easily accept what the adults in her life told her. I wish she pushed back more on her uncle specifically.
This book felt like it flew by so quickly; just when I thought I was beginning to meet and understand the characters, the book moved along. I wish there was maybe 50 pages more so that we could see some more fleshed out character development.
I had a fine time reading this, it was not my favorite from Victoria Schwab, but I enjoyed it.

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kathrynleereads's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

While I really enjoyed The Near Witch, I thought the ending was a bit abrupt.

I wish she would've mentioned how long it actually took for them to get from the village to the grove of trees out on the moor. Once it was a half-day trek, then she ran all the way there and back.

It was also frustrating that they kept making it all the way out there, only to turn and return to the village before finding anything.

While children are being kidnapped it seems as if there would be a bit more of a rush than trying to fix the problem on three separate days.

Why not just hide from the men that followed them and then continue their search instead of trekking all the way back to Near to just start completely over the next day?

Also, as a tracker who should be fairly adept at listening, she sure did get followed a lot. And the men left to watch her and keep her from sneaking out of the house really just did not learn.

•

The first half of the book detailed only a day or two of Lexi digging into the mystery, while the second half of the book covers multiple days of action, seeming to flit from day to day a lot faster.

It felt like it should've gone in the opposite direction.

In the final scene, Lexi runs all the way from the clearing to Near with the basket of bones, only to not get there in time and for the Near Witch to come alive as she does at night.

Cole and Otto then run out from the stone wall (which is in the opposite direction of where she left them), seemingly having beat her there or caught up to her, despite the fact that they supposedly had a whole hashing-out of their issues (which couldn't have been quick), and the fact that Lexi ran the whole way back.

Then after beating Lexi up for a minute, the Near Witch sees her old garden and just kind of floats into the grave the sisters had conjured there and went back to being dead.

It felt a little lacking to me, like after all the build-up, the ending should have been a little more drawn out.

•

Character-wise I loved Lexi, her parents, the sisters, Cole, and Wren.

Mrs. Thatcher had some good moments and provided good insight into the mindset of the village.

Master Matthew seemed to be alright but then told the other council members where Lexi and Cole were going and what they were doing, despite saying that he believed Lexi was correct and the Near Witch was to blame.

Otto seemed like deep down he was a decent person, but he was a pushover and should never have been granted the title of Protector, because he honestly sucked at it. He was very well-written, though.

Bo was a truly awful human.

I'm curious to know what happened to him, as it's never mentioned.

The character that is still stuck in my mind though? Tyler.

Sexist, misogynistic, piece-of-dirt pig.

He was not worth any redemption and deserved the same as Bo.

He thought he deserved Lexi and completely ignored her protests and requests.

•

Besides the abrupt ending to the story, I thoroughly enjoyed The Near Witch, and was very enthralled by the story while reading it.

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