Book Review: The Witch King By H.E. Edgmon

book cover by The Witch King By H.E. Edgmon

The Witch King is the first of the books I’m reading as part of the Trans Rights Readathon. I really liked the beginning of this one, but I thought it got a little bogged down and flat in the middle. I wasn’t quite sure what the goal was at certain points and felt like the plot meandered a bit.

I loved that there was so much good representation and diversity in The Witch King. I really enjoyed several of the characters we are introduced to, my favorites being Briar and Jin. I wish we’d had more of Jin overall! I’d also love to hear more from Briar’s side of things, I think it would be really interesting.

At first, I really found myself drawn to the main character Wyatt and his story. One of my favorite lines of his in the early pages of the book was:

“Gender is weird. The rules are all made up and people should just do whatever they want”

That’s so true, and I really relate to that feeling. But as the book went on I found Wyatt to be a bit annoying at times. The book is told through first person point of view, which I think contributed to the meandering I mentioned, as a lot of time was spent on Wyatt thinking about things, then not really communicating those thoughts to people in a conducive way. Throughout the book, Wyatt comes up these schemes which he doesn’t really seem to think through, then never really has to face any real consequences for many of his actions. This way of thinking and acting may be true to course for some teenagers, but it’s not the most compelling thing to read.

Overall, I know a lot of people love this book, and while it wasn’t one of my favorites, I can see why others enjoyed it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Rating: 3 stars

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