Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Witching Hour

I thought this was really good. It takes a hot second to get going, but I think it’s worth sticking with it. My favorite parts of the book are the Mayfair files section and the ending. For a small section towards the end of the book I felt a strong sense of dread and I wish this was more prominent throughout the book, especially the ending with how the end is sort of open. That might of just been me, though. Considering the contents of the book and repeating history/foreshadowing, I probably should have felt more dread.

Another thing I really liked was when Michael realized he had become “the man.”

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belladonnashrike's review against another edition

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dark mysterious

3.0

I liked it! I find the mayfair history really interesting and I love how she chronicled their history via secondhand accounts, although it did get a little repetitive.

I’m really intrigued by rowan and lasher, but I couldn’t give a flying fuck about michael. his backstory was completely unnecessary. he’s joining the marius, david, and (book) louis club with how boring I find them.

I love how she writes about new orleans - it always feels like I’m there even though I’ve never been. you can feel the love for her city in every page she writes.

major critique of this book is her incessant weirdness about irish & mixed race people. rice has a habit of making all her characters have the same viewpoints on race, gender roles, pedophilia etc. regardless of their culture or century, which just makes it seem that these are her viewpoints that she refuses to examine, alter, or personalize for the otherwise brilliant characters she writes. it flattens them, on top of being questionable. similarly, she constantly asserts that rough sex = rape and it’s making me question whether or not some of her characters were truly sexually assaulted in the vampire chronicles, because it’s a little fuzzy and I feel that that wasn’t intentional. I don’t understand why some people think of rape in this way, it baffles me.

would I reread it? probably not. my opinion towards this book is similar to the IWTV (book): I have a delicate mix of intrigue and indifference towards them both. i definitely enjoyed both more than TOtBT and MtD, but they won’t be the books I’ll return to in the future. the books I’ll be rereading are TVL, QOtD, and TVA. I’m interested in reading the rest of the mayfair witches, and I can’t wait to get back to the vampire chronicles with merrick! I miss my vampires.

also. the greatest sentence in all literature is this: and I don’t fear your ghost even if he sports the cock of an archangel!!! thank you, anne rice.

***there isn’t a specific tag for this but there is explicit pregnancy/birth horror present in the latter half of this book!

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murray1134's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

3.5/5 it's a good book and a good story but the way it's structured is just so bizarre, we start following two characters and they completely disappear from the narrative for 300+ pages as we get a detailed backstory on the whole family, would've been nice to have that more sprinkled throughout instead

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perfectcupoftea's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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marleyreads's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

3.5

October 29, 2020 – page 75 - 7.23% "I’m just confused about what this book is really about?"
November 11, 2020 – page 339 - 32.66% "This is going to take all year. But it’s soooo goood"
November 24, 2020 – page 630 - 60.69% "Chapter 23 done. that’s like at least 27 pages in each chapter, and each page has a margin of like 4 mm on each side, and the text is tiny. It’s exhausting!"

I just finished this brick of a book, and honestly I’m so disappointed. Rice sets up a realistic family, a backstory so detailed and well done, only to completely and utterly destroy it in the last 30 pages. It was so clear until the last 3-4 chapters that this was meant to be a standalone, and for some unexplained reason decided for it to be a trilogy, AFTER 1000 pages.

Okay, rant over. Anne Rice writes like she is right there in the book. The descriptions are rich and almost so real you could stretch out your hand to touch them. The characters are amazing, and she introduces so many people without losing us completely along the way. We get time with each of them, we understand them and we mourn them.

Our main characters are introduced slowly, and their faiths are slowly interwined until it all goes to hell in the end. Michael comes off as a kind, calm and resourceful man, traditional, but soft. While Rowan is ambitious, strong and free-spirited. Both have their demons, and their lives meet and collide.

Rice could easily have cut down 1/3 of the book without losing much of what happens. We get a lot of internal monologue and long paragraphs of thinking, but not nearly enough peaks. The big point of no return made absolutely no sense for our main characters, and it seriously annoys me.

This is definitely not a book for everyone, but all of this is my personal opinion and I see that a lot of people love this book deeply, but it lacked so much to me. Gosh, glad that’s overwith😅

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ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

3.0

[Review from Aug 2019]

Oh my goodness I am not ready to rate this book yet. Definitely have to digest it a little bit first!

Initially I think I would say that I didn't *like* it, exactly, but it is also possible that I loved it... At the very least it was very, *very* interesting, and it definitely makes you think which is great... it also felt really honest to me, like Rice was totally taking the story where she honestly felt it wanted to go--this was my impression of the book in contrast to what a lot of other reviewers seem to think... (does anyone know if she is a pantser or a plotter?--this felt like a pantsed novel to me...)

What I'll say is that this book really felt like The Fountainhead but for morally ambiguous witches...? I would also say that it felt SO Christian--for a book that seems to be trying really hard to be non-Christian, it felt *really* Christian to me... *almost* like Christian apologism? somehow...? ¯\_(ヅ)_/¯

Also can someone like give me some clarity on all the sex scenes? Were those supposed to feel *highly* problematic or is that just my perspective influencing my take?

Ultimately I just don't think that this was my kind of book... but there was still a lot in it that I liked very much in spite of all the problematic elements... and like I said, it was very, *very* interesting... lots of things to think about! It would make a good book club book except for that it's a billion pages long! & the sex scenes… whewwweeeee.

[Updated thoughts from Oct 2019]

Ok so I… still haven’t really managed to figure out quite how I feel about it this one.

The story itself revolves around the legends and history concerning the Mayfair witches—a family that descends from a Scottish peasant woman who accidentally (I think?—lots of vagaries make the mystery of the story really linger with you because you almost never get any definitive answers… do I like that? or do I *love* that? or do I find that really, *really* irritating?? Idk!) anyway, the peasant woman, Suzanne, accidentally conjures a spirit? angel? ghost? (agh!)—a supernatural entity of some kind that then becomes attached to the Mayfair family and especially a particular female scion in each generation who becomes the sole beneficiary of the Mayfair legacy. The Mayfairs themselves all possess some degree of supernatural powers from mind-reading to telekinesis and other various skills. And the main character is Rowan, the current Mayfair scion. The modern story takes place in the late 20th century but there is a lot of historical backstory that starts in the 17th century. And I guess there’s not much more I can say about it plot-wise without giving too much away!

Basically if you’re in the mood for a book about witches that is a thousand pages long, and crazy dark, devastating, southern, gothic, absolutely horrific, and not feminist (unfortunately) at all, with quite a bit of rather violent sex, then this is the book for you! Oh dear that sounds like a mess, doesn’t it?

Four stars!

(I really just need to move on from this book…)

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jodij's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

4.0

To start with, I wanted to read this book during October. I hoped it would be a good witchy read. I was hugely disappointed. This book was difficult to get through. Much of it was dedicated to the history of each and every Mayfair witch... There are 13 of them! The book doesn't really get to the main plot til the last 200 pages! And WARNING... there is a lot of incest in this book. There are a lot of graphic sex scenes. I'm an adult but these were uncomfortable. I have the other 2 books in this series... Don't know if I will read them.

After sitting with this book rolling around in my mind I have to say I actually really feel much more positive about it. And yes I read Lasher and that helped change my feelings about this book. I will be reading Taltos also and I am thinking about reading Anne's other books because the way she writes is very good.

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purplepumpkin77's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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