In a world that eats women alive, bite back

I’m not known for writing longer reviews, so please bear with me.

This would have been a solid 3.5, maybe even a 4. We have a folklore setting with a mythical creature (I’m sorry, but just because someone looks frightening to you or doesn’t act like you, that doesn’t make them a monster) named Jenny, who lives in a beautiful lake and enjoys her life until a witch is thrown into it. What could have been a fun, found-family adventure story without romance for once instead became, disappointingly, a story full of prejudice and implicit racism. Honestly, though, it isn’t that implicit.

If you are one of those people who thinks, “It’s just a fantasy story, it’s not that deep,” please spare me. The book is told through Jenny’s POV, which makes the bias even worse: Temperance’s actions and words are framed as acceptable because Jenny herself has been convinced to believe she's in the wrong.

The narrative leans on the civilizing trope, in which a uncivilized person/group of people or in this case non-human character must be humanized and corrected by a supposedly more civilized human counterpart. Yes, technically Temperance is a witch, but she lives among humans as one of them, and her perspective is constantly framed as biased in favor of humans. Temperance is written as the authority on morality, who corrects Jenny’s supposed flaws. I felt deeply uncomfortable.

I’m sorry, but if the author is unable to recognize the connection to racism, then at least one of the editors should have. Temperance acts and is portrayed as superior. I wanted to throw my e-reader across the room several times. She considers Jenny beneath her, yet still wants to use Jenny’s abilities for her own benefit. She repeatedly treats magical beings as lesser than humans and comes across as a condescending hypocrite.

I needed real accountability and genuine acknowledgment from Temperance. Instead, the story implies that the marginalized character should simply submit to her oppressor so everyone can move on as friends. What. the. fuck.

I genuinely don't think the author recognized what she was writing, because the racism feels so internalized. There is no meaningful discussion of it. On the contrary, the story gives the impression that this behavior is righteous. That is what made the book so frustrating for me: not just the prejudice itself, but the narrative’s refusal to question it.