[Book Review] The Girl of Hawthorn And Glass by Adan Jerreat Poole

There are so many things I wish to say about this ARC that I received from NetGalley. I started reading this book with high hopes and an enthusiasm that was unlevelled. The name of the book, the blurb and the cover were so impressive that I felt like I had to read. The feeling continued for a few chapters before completely dying.

Throughout the time that I read the book, the characters never spoke to me and I couldn’t learn to care for them. Every character is under-described but what disturbed me most was the gruesomeness of the protagonist Eli. There’s a fine line when it comes to this: I enjoy reading about humans dealing with animal traits, personalities that make them resemble foxes or lions. But when the protagonist is partially an animal, one that crawls on fours and has crocodile teeth and eyes? I don’t think I was confortable reading about that. Instead if Eli had snarled at people like a crocodile, I think it would have been a lot better. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t know?

When it came to the rest of the characters – none of them was described well enough. I cannot picture even one well enough and there was nothing that made them memorable. The worldbuilding was interesting although not very clearly set in my opinion. Since there was no logic in the land of witches, every location they visited could or did change drastically from Eli’s childhood.

The one thing I really appreciated about the book was the queer representation and how thoroughly the author refers to Tav as ‘them’ or ‘they’. The entire cast of characters contributed to the LGBTQ+ representation and that’s something we all love.

Giving this 3/5 stars for absurd creativity and great rep!