Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

13 reviews

bugcarnival9000's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The narrative storytelling lent itself perfectly to an audiobook. I really enjoyed listening to this book because it felt just like an oral history. The humor laced into the moral panic was really well-executed, and I appreciated how each character had such a rich description and life to them.
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danasaur's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective relaxing slow-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

3.25

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melodyseestrees's review against another edition

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dark funny slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The style of this book was a large miss for me. So much detail is missed in these letters between characters. This makes the writers of the letters excellent unreliable narrators but ultimately does not strengthen the plot very much.  
This is a bit of a social commentary on greed and mob mentality. I find myself disagreeing with
The Keplers on their win of the case. Yes Frau Kepler avoided execution but she still faced abuse, torture, isolation, and an outcast status.
Every character was some shade of infuriating or tedious, which is realistic but not very enjoyable. I did enjoy Frau Kepler the most of the characters as her dry wit balanced out the everything else a little. 
The ending of the book really lost steam and was unsatisfactory. We did not know enough about the character who wrote the pages we were reading so they came off as trivial and shady.
Simon went to visit Frau Kepler after a long time. She knew and said that he was there for curses, to face judgment for not speaking up for her at the trial. The reader did not know this as Simon was talking of his visit like he had lost track of time.
 
If the reader is someone who likes unreliable narrators and stories where much of the action happens off page this will be enjoyable for them.
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mattiedancer's review against another edition

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emotional funny sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Writing: 4⭐️/5 
The writing is stylized enough to give it a human touch. It does feel, at times, like you’re reading the unedited, unformated thoughts of the characters. And yet, something about it was incredibly hard to get used to. I’ve been thinking lots about it and I’m still not sure exactly what it is, other than perhaps the tone mismatches the time period – or at least my expectations of the time period. Writing with a more modern feel to it, I had a hard time with feeling as though it felt cohesive with the events. Overall though, strongly written, even if a bit hard to get in the flow of.

Characters: 4.75⭐️/5
I really enjoyed Frau Kepler’s, or Katharina’s, sections of the story. She had a strong voice, a strong personality, and it was always incredibly clear when I was reading her sections versus Simon’s. In fact, all the characters felt alive: in the way they lied, in the way they thought, and in the way they remembered. 

Plot: 4.25⭐️/5 
It’s the story of a woman, accused of witchcraft, who is found victim of a campaign to blame all their problems on her. The story’s plot, while always centered on Katharina’s trial and the accusations thrown at her, goes beyond it in the oddest ways, focusing on her cow, her family, and her thoughts on the neighbours in an intriguing way. My biggest critique here is that it took me a while to get into. But it was a surprisingly fun – and then serious and then semi-sad – story that I’m glad to have read. 

Who Should Read This Book? 
  • Those looking for a fun historical fiction read
  • Those who want historical fiction but love modern spins on stories
  • Readers looking for stories about witchcraft and mob-mentality-driven witch hunts

Content Warnings? 
  • Death, death of parent, death of child, manipulation, toxic relationships, injury/injury detail, child loss, pregnancy, grief, torture

Post-Reading Rating:  4.25⭐️/5
A wonderful, apt ending to a fun yet serious story.

Final Rating: 4.25⭐️/5
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c_lizziebeth's review against another edition

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dark funny hopeful informative reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes

5.0

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slothmom's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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myfbusters's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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hillbilly_heroine's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-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? Yes

4.5

This is a fictionalized account, drawing on historical documents, of the witch trial of Katharina Kepler, mother of astronomer Johannes Kepler. But really, this is a book about flawed humans. 

It would have been easy to write Katharina as a more likeable, more relatable-to-modern-women main character, and it would have been easier still to write her “legal guardian,” Simon, as either her sole ally and savior, or as evil and duplicitous. Galchen resists these impulses. 

Instead we have a Katharina who is wry, sarcastic, stubborn, meddlesome, and often irrational, but whose love of animals and children is sweet and pure. Her character is not a thinly veiled stand-in for everything modern feminism wants her to be, but she is also clever and brave and kind and difficult. She’s a mother and I love her in the way many of us long-suffering adult children of difficult, obstinate women love our mothers. 

Simon is a good friend to Katharina for as long as he can be. We are shown the very real stakes of allying oneself with a woman accused of witchcraft, and the very human (if not admirable) response many would have had at that time. He is very much Going Through His Own Thing throughout this ordeal, so while we are disappointed in him, we ultimately, like Katharina, lack the energy or desire to convict him. 

This is the real world: when you find yourself in desperate times, some folks will be utterly heroic and self-sacrificing, but most cannot be. You will understand and be a little sad about it at the same time. You will love them all anyway, because they gave what they could, and we are all fighting our own battles.
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imds's review against another edition

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

2.5

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buntatamilis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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