Book Review: A Witch's Kitchen
Sep. 11th, 2016 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI read Dianna Sanchez’s A Witch’s Kitchen through Netgalley, and it has lots of delicious food descriptions, as you would expect of a book from that title. I made a batch of cookies just yesterday, and yet this book has filled me with the desire to make more.
Other than that… There’s a lot of surface cute here in the drawing of the Enchanted Forest. In fact I think “cute” might be the best word overall for the book, which is initially appealing, but becomes a problem as the book develops Millie’s relationship with her mother, Bogdana. At the beginning their problem seems to be miscommunication: Bogdana is exasperated by Millie’s difficulty casting spells and fails to adequately communicate that she loves Millie despite her seeming hopelessness as a witch.
But as revelations pile up, it becomes clear that this isn’t just miscommunication, it’s straight-up child abuse, and the book just doesn’t have the emotional range or heft to cope with that.
It turns out that Millie’s special talent is as a kitchen witch. This is an unfashionable specialty, so Bogdana - in an attempt to force Millie’s talent down some other path - bespelled the kitchen so Millie couldn’t use magic there. And then berated Millie for her difficulty casting spells, even though she is personally responsible for Millie’s difficulties!
Moreover! She told Millie that her father was dead, even though he’s alive and well, and cast a memory spell on Millie to erase all her memories of him. Because...it would be inconvenient if Millie mentioned her father in front of the coven. He’s just a normal human, and Bogdana would lose face if the other witches heard about it.
Basically she’s fucking with her kid’s memories to make her own life easier. And then she claims she did it - all of it! - for Millie’s own good. So not only is she short-tempered and self-centered, but she’s always ready to spout off a justification for any of it.
By the end of the book I wanted a responsible adult, any responsible adult, to be trying to get Millie the fuck away from her horrible mother. But this would be difficult and emotionally messy and probably not fit into the aesthetic of cute, so it all just sort of ends up patched over with “Well mistakes were made, but eh, Bogdana will do better in the future, and now Millie can visit her father sometimes, hooray!”
That left a bad taste in my mouth.
Other than that… There’s a lot of surface cute here in the drawing of the Enchanted Forest. In fact I think “cute” might be the best word overall for the book, which is initially appealing, but becomes a problem as the book develops Millie’s relationship with her mother, Bogdana. At the beginning their problem seems to be miscommunication: Bogdana is exasperated by Millie’s difficulty casting spells and fails to adequately communicate that she loves Millie despite her seeming hopelessness as a witch.
But as revelations pile up, it becomes clear that this isn’t just miscommunication, it’s straight-up child abuse, and the book just doesn’t have the emotional range or heft to cope with that.
It turns out that Millie’s special talent is as a kitchen witch. This is an unfashionable specialty, so Bogdana - in an attempt to force Millie’s talent down some other path - bespelled the kitchen so Millie couldn’t use magic there. And then berated Millie for her difficulty casting spells, even though she is personally responsible for Millie’s difficulties!
Moreover! She told Millie that her father was dead, even though he’s alive and well, and cast a memory spell on Millie to erase all her memories of him. Because...it would be inconvenient if Millie mentioned her father in front of the coven. He’s just a normal human, and Bogdana would lose face if the other witches heard about it.
Basically she’s fucking with her kid’s memories to make her own life easier. And then she claims she did it - all of it! - for Millie’s own good. So not only is she short-tempered and self-centered, but she’s always ready to spout off a justification for any of it.
By the end of the book I wanted a responsible adult, any responsible adult, to be trying to get Millie the fuck away from her horrible mother. But this would be difficult and emotionally messy and probably not fit into the aesthetic of cute, so it all just sort of ends up patched over with “Well mistakes were made, but eh, Bogdana will do better in the future, and now Millie can visit her father sometimes, hooray!”
That left a bad taste in my mouth.
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no subject
Date: 2016-09-11 08:41 pm (UTC)Are there recipes?
no subject
Date: 2016-09-11 09:26 pm (UTC)The ending felt a bit rushed to me, so perhaps there wasn't time/word count to see it through properly? I don't know. The characters definitely didn't seem to think that it was as bad as I did.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-11 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-11 11:17 pm (UTC)Surely you would expect Millie's father to be super damn pissed about the fact that Bogdana erased all her memories of him, for instance? And sure, he's a little irritated, but then they arrange for Millie to come visit him for a few weeks and that makes it all right apparently.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-12 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-13 01:20 am (UTC)