The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry

This book gave me the ick from the first chapter. It felt like the author was trying too hard to be whimsical. Names, word choices, character interactions, all trying way too hard. But then it grows on you just a little. Dellaria and Winn's love story is cute, if not awkwardly chaste. Delly sleeps with a few dudes, but only kisses Winn a couple times and gets engaged.

i enjoyed this a lot. it's silly, low-ish stakes and i would murder for winn. it was a good read after something really heavy and dense and i wished i could have spent more time with delly and winn after the end.

Very enjoyable world, with great characters, and growth.

Buttons is the best character.

The book is set in a steampunk Victorian setting. I really enjoyed the story of Delly and Winn throughout the story. Winn's saying “what” after each sentence was a bit annoying at first but I grew to like it. I liked that a bunch of “witches” getting together to stop the drug trade especially since they are from different backgrounds.

I hope there is a sequel to this story.

This book has a terrible title, but it's actually a pretty fun book, so I'm glad my book club chose it because I would never have picked it up on my own. The ladies in question are not particularly ruthless nor is this structured as a guide. Instead, it's an engaging adventure in an alternate Victorian London that's part murder mystery, part Breaking Bad, and part “Period Lesbian Movie.” That makes me sound a bit dismissive, but I honestly had a pretty good time. The characters are fun and not too cardboard, the magi system is entertaining, and above all the quality of the writing is a cut above most Steampunk/Steampunk-adjacent books I've read. Recommended as a fun, gay summer read.

Meh. Several times I forgot what the main plot was because the story stayed overlong on this topic or that. Many things just weren't interesting to me.

Fast paced and enthusiastic, although I can kind of understand some of the other reviews that comment on the way it is written, which does initially seem idiosyncratic. I assume this is intentional however since, once you tune into it, it does give a good impression of the main character's thought processes. It did sometimes remind me of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen (I swear there was at least one exchange that was inspired by this), but ultimately this added to the charm.