From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1)

Deborah Harkness

Start date: September 1, 2019

Finish date: September 30, 2019

Discussion: 2019 Monthly Challenge

Discussion leader: Kenya Starflight

Why we're reading this: Choice for the 2019 September group read: a book set on a college/university campus.
[close] Choice for the 2019 September group read: a book set on a college/university campus.

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2019 Monthly Challenge

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What Members Thought

Jul 26, 2011 Lydia Presley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, fantasy, 2012

In A Discovery of Witches, much like the blurb states, I was reminded of my days of reading Anne Rice. I remembered when the idea of vampires chilled me to the bone, made me feel a little bit like I needed to watch over my shoulder, and provided me with a touch of forbidden romance. Then came the young adult vampire craze. Girls went gaga over the idea of an Edward, screaming loudly for a man to come and dominate their lives and their sexuality much like Edward did Bella's, and my fascination wi ...more

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Aug 03, 2012 shalini rated it it was ok

Author vacillates between Stephnie meyer series and Harry potter and has added time travel ( time traveller's wife)for a good measure of intrigue. Its like she has read all the fantasy fiction series and then picked out bit and pieces from every where and added them into the plot. The cherry on the cake is the Harlequin-esque romance between the Vampire and the witch. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARTGH!!!

While reading about the Vampires, I had flashbacks from Twilight series and half expected Edward Cullen to ...more

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Feb 11, 2011 Kelly rated it it was ok

Shelves: adult, fantasy

This book felt like a retread of Twilight–lots of longing and no sex, star-crossed lovers destined to be together, nascent powers of the heroine.

The first two thirds of the book moves too slowly. Too much drinking wine (yawn). Too much historical examinations of books in an old library (even for me, a librarian). I kept wondering who would read this book. Romantics would want things to get moving and historical fiction readers would cringe during the treacly romance scenes. Despite the odds, how ...more

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Aug 15, 2011 Christina, Join Me on Storygraph! rated it liked it

Shelves: 2012

I very much enjoyed this book until about the halfway point; that's when I realized that this book has many of the same problems Twilight does (though with much better writing and a much less obnoxious heroine). I hope this isn't a spoiler, but why does the witch fall in love with the vampire, and vice versa? They have this chemistry, this attraction, but it's really not explained at all. Then, the second half of the book just gets BORING. It's a lot of sitting around and waiting and planning an ...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Heather Wescott rated it liked it · review of another edition

I enjoyed parts of this book, but found other parts to be unbelievably frustrating. For the first half, the main character of Diana was extremely irritating and seemed so weak! I'm a feminist, and the constant discussion of how she wanted/needed Matthew to 'manage' her made me furious. There were also long stretched of circular conversations without much advancing of the plot. The second half of the book was more interesting, and I will probably read the next installment to see where the story g ...more

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