It’s been a while since I have delved into a Reverse Harem romance novel. I have so much time on my hands now during quarantine that I wanted to get into a new RH series to get lost in, and this series seemed to be the perfect one. Magic school, interesting female lead character, and a magical world full of flaws in the system? Sign me up! Nevertheless, this was not the amazing book that I thought it was going to be.
For starters, I disliked the main character. Astra was loyal to her best friend at the start of the novel, and they seemed to be in some sort of relationship, which was how Astra got in trouble and was sent to the “jail” called the Guild of Guardians. I started off the novel completely with her, but I got irritated with her very quickly. She had Aspbergers, which was NOT the reason why I disliked her. One of my favorite fantasy series of all time has a main character who is autistic. But I felt that rather than just allowing us to see how Astra was just a normal adult woman who happened to have Asperger’s, I felt like the Asperger’s was written in clumsily.
Two sentences that made me cringe were “Mild case of OCD. It helped appease my Asperger’s which triggered in out of the ordinary situations” and “Normally I spoke my mind, a symptom of my Asperger’s.” The first situation was a discussion of how she turned the light on and off on her phone in order to relax in a stressful situation. I feel that it could have been left at that, in a way like “I repeated the action three times, just to feel a little more relaxed.” The second situation I felt could have been just a way to say “I’ve never been able to keep my mouth shut, it’s my fatal flaw!” Rather than pointing out the fact that it is because of her Asperger’s. I would have much more enjoyed reading her if the internal monologue seemed realistic. This dislike of the main character tainted the majority of the book for me.
Lastly, the romance. I came here for a reverse harem novel, but I don’t want Astra to end up with any of the characters! Tor is the only one who seems to be attracted to her romantically/sexually for most of the book, but I didn’t think he was a good love interest. There were several times that he plays a “joke” on Astra and puts her in danger/gets her in trouble. The other men either didn’t like Astra at all or liked her but in an extremely friendly way. Pascal specifically is autistic and seems to befriend Astra, but I’m not sure if their relationship would become romantic in later books. I just didn’t feel the love at all, and didn’t want her with anyone.
I, unfortunately, wouldn’t be able to recommend Life’s A Witch to any romance or reverse harem fans.
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 1 out of 5 books
