Review: James: Witch-Hunter by K.S. Marsden

Hi Munchworms!

An awfully long time ago, the author of James: Witch-Hunter contacted me to ask whether or not I wanted to read and review her novel. As soon as I knew it was about witches… Let’s just say I jumped at the opportunity.

But I’m not really jumping to write this review since it’s going to be a hard one…

~Prequel to the Witch-Hunter trilogy~

James Bennett is a Yorkshire lad, making the big move to Oxford to start university.
His ambitions involve getting a good education; impressing the Rugby Club; and not throttling his roommate. All perfectly normal drama, until Hallowe’en.

A girl’s murder throws James into the dangerous world of witches, and those that hunt them.

After playing a sidekick in the Witch-Hunter trilogy, it’s only fair that James gets to be centre stage in his own prequel.
This can be read as a stand-alone, and does not contain any spoilers. It may contain witches, bad jokes and cringe-worthy scenes; but definitely no spoilers.

The only thing I liked about this novel is the overall story, the idea. But that’s really it and it hurts so much to say that…

And even the overall story got on my nerves sometimes. Why? It’s just so predictable. As soon as one small event occurred at the start of the novel, I knew how it was going to end and I was right. Sure, sometimes books can be predictable like that, but sometimes it also just makes you enjoy a story so much less.

The world-building. It’s pretty much a world with witches in it as well and that’s it. However, we never find out why the witches are using their powers or why there’s a need for witch-hunters – like, they can’t all be bad witches, right?! Having those questions the entire time got tiring and frustrating all at once, really.

“Not everythin’s about you, mate.”

Then we have our MC and his roommate, James and Hunter. Now those are the guys you seek if you ever need yourself two annoying, self-centered and egotistical men with pretty much no respect when it comes to women. To say I didn’t like either of them is an understatement.

But there’s one thing I had an even bigger problem with. Alcohol. Sure, our characters are at university and alcohol’s a given there I guess. However… Is it necessary for them to go on about beer, wine and whiskey pretty much all the time? There are other ways to cope with things gone wrong?! My father’s an alcoholic so I guess it makes sense this got on my nerves ridiculously fast and hard…

To say I didn’t really enjoy this novel at all is… expected? I wish it was different since I never want to hurt an author but sometimes you just cannot sugarcoat some small annoyances when it’s big frustrations you’re dealing with…

Is there a book that got on your nerves like this one got on mine? Which one?

 

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