These Witches Don't Burn

[alaterdate]

These Witches Don't Burn by Isabel Sterling centers around Hannah Walsh. A teen girl living in Salem Massachusetts who also happens to be a witch, a real witch, and a huge lesbian (as she calls herself). Hannah has to find a way to protect her friends, family, and coven from the mysterious threat that suddenly begins to befall them. Sounds like an awesome book right, so what's the catch? It sucks.

The story prominently features Hannah's ex-girlfriend Veronica (who is a member of the same coven and apparently a childhood friend?????). Veronica is by far the worst character I've come across in a book. There's absolutely nothing about her that makes it seem like Hannah would date her except for that they were apparently childhood friends, but that only comes up in about one line and there's nothing else about it—ever. There's only one flashback-ish memory about their shared history and it's not even about them. Half of the plot revolves around her (being needy as hell) and every scene she's in is terrible. She made me so uncomfortable as a reader with her constantly pushing Hannah to get back together with her and all her unwanted advances. That's her only personality, if you can call that a personality at all. Not saying non-straight people can't be messy wrecks, but she was laying it on really thick. Anyone acting like that is big yikes. The rest of the characters are not that much better. If they're not terrible, they're bland as hell. The new love interest, Morgan, also has no personality. I couldn't tell you a thing about her. The best friend and the antagonist are the best characters because they have a tiny semblance of personality, but it's not that great.

Another thing I disliked was that an important event happened before the book started. I think if that situation would have been included as an actual scene in the book it could have helped a lot to establish the relationship between Hannah and Veronica and Hannah's huge fear 'blood witches."
There were only two things I really liked (besides wlw rep): the three types of witches was an interesting concept and I think it would have been cool to explore that more rather than just outright stating "elemental witch good. Blood witch bad." Would have loved to see more of the hierarchical relationship bewteen elementals and casters too. Why make this social and power distinction and then not explore it at all? The second thing was the antagonists ideals and the scheme behind their actions. I won't spoil it because it was the most interesting part to me/the best part of the book and basically the only fresh idea to come out of this book.

The biggest problem of this book other than the hardly even one-note characters is it's constant back and forth in tone. It's mystery/attack then romance then mystery, the romance again. What's worse is that it would practically forget what just happened in the last chapter. Hannah gets attacked and sent to the hospital, then in the next chapter she's on a date, then something awful happens. The plot was just all over the place and felt very flimsy. The end was very unsatisfying as well.

Wildly disappointed by this book. Seemed like it was going to be good from the synopsis, but it never really delivers.