Daughter of Chaos

At least the cover art is good...?

Welp. The first book in this series had its issues, but I still found quite a few things to like about that one and rated it as an average experience which would have been more enjoyable as original fiction. Thus, I went into this book expecting a similar reaction: annoyance at the characterization in places, but overall an entertaining experience.

Unfortunately, I was very unpleasantly surprised. In fact, I would go so far as to say this is what I would consider a bad book. The writing quality is lacking, the characterization is poor, the plot is a meandering dredge, and the format is abysmal. In the previous book, it was easier to accept the jumping between third person and first person chapters because the former were character studies and the latter actually plot-related. In this book, however, it jumps around and revisits the same scene sometimes three times in a row, making the timeline disjointed and repetitive. We go from first-person Sabrina to third-person everyone else with no true pattern to the order or pacing, all the while treading water as thick as molasses and as dreadfully boring as watching paint dry.

No, really. At one point, there's a literal torch-bearing mob chasing the main characters, and nothing comes of it other than a boring ride in a truck with banal conversation to pass the time. That, I believe, perfectly sums up how slow and uninteresting I found this book.

As for the characters: Nick is a pathetic, groveling, clueless echo of who he should be. Harvey is even more disgustingly selfish and bigoted than usual, yet portrayed as if some kind of amazing martyr for loving Sabrina in spite of his hatred for magic. (It reeks so much of the “one of the good ones” argument used by real life bigots that at times it honestly infuriated and/or sickened me.) Sabrina is wishy-washy and bounces between the extremes of leading Nick on and treating him like a worthless piece of trash. Prudence is at times nuanced and at others a caricature. Dorcas is... basically an original character with the same colour hair and same name. Hilda isn't as kind-hearted as she should be. Ambrose... is more in-character than he was in the previous book, but that's not saying much. Roz is terribly biased and OOC, and Susie feels kind of mischaracterized as well, but the all too convenient (and utterly meaningless, in the end) plot is used to explain those away. Nobody else is noteworthy.

Overall; a big, fat F- for characterization, as far as I'm concerned. No, really. This was like reading a terrible fanfic made by a Harvey/Sabrina shipper who hates Nick and thinks that he's completely irredeemable. Gross! But worse, Harvey may as well be renamed The Infallible Saint, Gary Stu. His strengths and weaknesses went back and forth according to plot demands in a completely nonsensical manner which almost always seemed to be making even his most egregious choices and actions appear noble. Including basically gaslighting a friend into doing something they don't want to - something which ultimately hurts them - using the “if you truly like me, you'll do this” method and deciding to fight against magic while having the audacity to claim he loves Sabrina because she's oh so different than all them other witches who are all evil and liars. Gag!

What I'm saying is: I didn't enjoy this book and honestly wish I'd given up on it and picked something better for my “Spooktober” reading during one of the many times I felt such an urge. It took basically the entire month to trudge through this extremely slow-moving tale, and all I got for the effort was the ability to say I didn't quit. Definitely not worth wasting the opportunity to enjoy the countless other ‘spooky' books out there. Certainly not worth all the frustration.

The plot itself is pointless, because it has to be nullified at the end to make it fit within the show's timeline. A more talented writer would make a believable story which could actually work with canon, but I felt like this one didn't even care about continuity or characterization. Only on rare occasions did the characters feel like they were authentic to their in-show selves and far too often the witches were ignorant of the world around them in ludicrously illogical and impossible ways. (Ffs, Nick Scratch doesn't even know what dolphins or flower vases are in this book!)

The small few moments of genuinely good writing or character depth just weren't enough to save this one - which is a shame, because when Nick wasn't being a simpering mess he had some really good development and the nuance added to Prudence was amazing when not being ignored. But the goodness just wasn't meant to last. No gold can stay. In the end, the bulk of this book read like a very poorly done fanfiction written by someone who didn't understand most of the characters but kept trying to portray them anyway as oddly misshapen cardboard cutouts. Were it a freebie online, I'd have quit reading very early and found something better.

Also, the author and/or editor couldn't be bothered to fix the multiple times Luke Chalfant was referred to as Luke Chalmers and the odd occasion of the Academy of Unseen Arts being referred to as the Academy FOR Unseen Arts. So it's fairly clear that no true passion or give-a-crap was put into this project or attempting to make it slot into place in canon. That's just shameful.

At one point, I was excited enough about the idea of these books that I got all three. The first was kind of a let down until the end, then made me expect good things from the second. But the second was such a boring and ridiculous disappointment that I'm no longer certain if I'll bother reading the third.

I wish I had spent October reading something better.

sorry to sabrina (and harvey) but they're just not nick scratch's number one fan in the same way that i am