Title: The Nature of Witches

Author: Rachel Griffin

Pub. Date: June 1, 2021

Pages: 362

Pub: Sourcebooks Fire

Genre: YA Paranormal Fantasy

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads

For centuries, witches have maintained the climate, their power from the sun peaking in the season of their birth. But now their control is faltering as the atmosphere becomes more erratic. All hope lies with Clara, an Everwitch whose rare magic is tied to every season.

In Autumn, Clara wants nothing to do with her power. It’s wild and volatile, and the price of her magic―losing the ones she loves―is too high, despite the need to control the increasingly dangerous weather.

In Winter, the world is on the precipice of disaster. Fires burn, storms rage, and Clara accepts that she’s the only one who can make a difference.

In Spring, she falls for Sang, the witch training her. As her magic grows, so do her feelings, until she’s terrified Sang will be the next one she loses.

In Summer, Clara must choose between her power and her happiness, her duty and the people she loves… before she loses Sang, her magic, and thrusts the world into chaos.

Practical Magic meets Twister in this debut contemporary fantasy standalone about heartbreaking power, the terror of our collapsing atmosphere, and the ways we unknowingly change our fate.

This will be a spoiler free review. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing a free

copy in exchange for an honest review. I don’t know if people lied, or hype just got out of control for this book, or I experienced some other timeline – but this book in no way lived up to my expectations.

I remember seeing people rave about this book, get really excited for it. For awhile, it was all over my timeline. Having read it, I don’t get why. Now, it’s not a bad book, but it’s just really meh. The whole premise just feels half baked, the MC is back and forth on her emotions, and the romance while cute, just leaves me feeling nothing for the characters. I’m so, unimpressed by this book.

I also find it exhausting that it’s clearly a commentary on “climate change” if you define it as “humanity is the problem, they caused it”. And while I’m not here to debate the fact that, sure, humanity hasn’t helped issues, they are not the cause of climate change. Yes, the impact it, and impact global warming, but they are not the cause. And this book paints humanity as being the cause, and that they’re too selfish to listen. Honestly, I just can’t deal with this line of thinking or reasoning, or whatever the fuck you want to call it.

Personally, it detracted a bit from the book, but overall, the whole premise just felt unformed. Nothing happened plot wise to make me really care. The characters didn’t do anything to make me care. The MC was kind of annoying, she never made up her mind, constantly was changing her mind about her emotions. She was whiny and full of self-pity.

I can get behind a character who is terrified of her powers, wants nothing to do with them, but that can’t be her entire personality. I can get behind a character who pushes those she cares and loves away to save them from her power, but she can’t make herself out to be the victim in the same breath.

The love interest is cute, he’s sweet and I did like him. But he was also just kind of bland. I don’t really have much to say. The two of them just didn’t really make me feel anything.

I felt so disconnected from this whole book. I guess I expected something a little darker, or grittier. Something a little more magical, with a stronger plot, more conflict…I expected to be wowed since people seemed to be screaming about this book. I don’t know if the promise of witches got everyone excited, but like, this did nothing for me. If it hadn’t been such a quick and easy read, I probably would have DNF’d it. But I blew through chunks of this at a time, in very little time. 40% in about an hour. Everything is so surface that it doesn’t take much to follow along and keep reading. It’s just interesting enough to keep turning the page, but not interesting enough to fully engage me. It feels like something I should have loved. I’m not even bummed I didn’t enjoy it like I thought I would. I’m just meh about it.

Also, there is no way in hell I would comp this with Twister. At all. Like, why. Just because there’s a tornado, doesn’t mean anything. It just means there’s a tornado.

This book isn’t terrible, but I wouldn’t go in expecting to be blown away.