The Black Witch

I read this book because it was brought up as “problematic”. An author was marked as “problematic”, because she liked this book. That to me is “problematic”.
There's also a lot of people getting their knickers in twist about people getting their knickers in twist over this book. It amuses me how quick they are to label people not liking this book as “hateful sheep”. Come on, people. Let people think what ever they want about the book.
I wanted to see what all the fuzz was about.

All the reports of how racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist this book is, are exaggerated.
Yes, the society of this book is horribly all of that.
Yes, the MC is a 17 years old girl who was grown on the countryside and never met any people different from her, except some Urisk farm workers, and who displays most of the racism and chauvinism of her society through quite a lot of the book. Yes, she is racist. Because she doesn't know any better. But she quickly learns that most of the things she was taught were wrong. She admits being wrong, she apologizes, she learns.
And she educates herself.
But the people weren't stereotypical.

It's also not a “girl hate” book. Yes, there is your typical Regina George Malfoy queen bee who hates the MC, and makes her life miserable. But she has friends. Good friends.

So - if you want to hate me for liking this book, go ahead. But, maybe someone liking a book you don't like isn't worth hating the person for. Maybe?

So - what did I like about this book? I liked it. It kept my interest the whole time. It presented obstacles that felt overpowering. I cried of the misery of it all. I hate it when people who are supposed to be there won't help. I hate aunt whateverfuckhernameis. It was incredibly cruel to give her that room.

Also, there is no such thing as reverse racism. There's only racism, and if you think someone is a bad person because of their skin color, race, ethnicity, nationality, then you are a racist, even if you belong to a minority. Hate crimes are hate crimes who ever is the culprit. We can't say “it's not abuse when it's an abused person doing it”. It's abuse.
There is also no institutionalized racism against white people. There is private, personal, subjective racism, though. Racial slurs aren't ok, even when calling a white person what ever isn't even close as bad as calling a black person N-word. Physical violence is NEVER OK.