The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass is a fun diverse fantasy adventure that takes us along the story of an assassin named Eli who journeys through a magical world of witches and something more.

The writing was a bit of a miss to me, unfortunately, and the worldbuilding wasn't able to capture my interest since it wasn't super well developed. Stories about manmade protagonists who have to rediscover their humanity are always interesting, but Jerreat-Poole wasn't able to build upon this general trope very well. That plus the weird pacing made it hard to keep track of where the story was going and why it was going where it was.

I did enjoy the character dynamics, though, and the casual inclusion of diversity in race and orientation was a very enjoyable element to see in a high fantasy-type world. I'd be interested to see where this cast goes in the next book.

Overall, not the strongest debut but certainly has its charm and room to develop into a solid fantasy series!

Thank you Netgalley and Dundurn House for the arc!

Is she a girl? Is she a stick? Is she an assassin?


Eli being just a teenage girl is an understatement! Assassin…and made by witches solely to do their bidding. The thought of being made just to do something for someone else is awful, but being given wrong information is worse! Killing someone you weren’t suppose to and will make you question even the people that “made” you! Worried that because of the mistake or wrong info that she will be unmade, Eli does everything in her power to fix it and make these witches happy. Having help from some humans… trying to find something for the coven while also questioning everything makes Eli’s task even harder. How will she deal with that along with just being a teenage girl… Kind of.


Though I love Eli, Cam and Tav as a character and a group, this isn’t my favorite story. I just wasn’t able to be fully immersed into it at all. It makes me said because I really wanted to like this story. I think this is why it has taken me so long to read it. I’m always afraid of the hype I give on books. Though I didn’t hate this one, it just wasn’t my favorite. Poole does an amazing job building the world and the characters, I just think this story isn’t made for me. I give it a 3/5 because I did love the world and the characters, but the story just fell a little flat for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this review copy.

Unfortunately I didn't click with this book's writing style, so I have to DNF.

I didn't hate it but I went in thinking it was going to be a fantasy not a modern fantasy. Where the girl is indeed created by a witch with the soul intention of killing ghost in the name of the Coven, but when she is sent on a new assignment things start going a little off the map when she realizes she's being sent to kill a person of flesh and blood.

I did enjoy the world where the witches came from it was ....wild ;to say the least.

I will not be recommending this book for purchase as an addition to our school library. Thank you for the opportunity to read.

I read it and found it a bit hard to really get into, it has really much potential, but the pace was a bit to slow for my liking.

Thank you for the arc

I found this to be an enjoyable read, keeping me on my toes throughout. The storyline was written well and flowed seamlessly. I look forward to reading more by this author!

Dnf at 3%. A new form of fantasy where magic and technology clash. Unfortunately, it’s unable to really hook me in from the first few chapters

Wow. And that’s not even a good wow.

This was a literal hot mess and I don’t even know where to start.

The plot had real potential but it was all over the place and too confusing for me to follow through. The world-building was non-existent, LGBTQA representation was great but there wasn't much else to rave about, and the writing style wasn’t to my liking. I can literally go on and on but I’m sure you got the gist with all the other low ratings for this novel.

Nevertheless, there is something we can all learn from this: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Nuff said.

The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass by Adan Jerreat-Poole was such a cute read. The story line, the characters, the entire structure of the story kept me on my toes. I couldn’t put it down.

Oh man I wanted to LOVE this book so much! I do love the characters but it moved at SNAILS PACE which I feel like should be impossible because of how much happens! Like so much happens, and yet it still took forever! Definitely in need of some better editing.

I picked up this book based on the cover and description alone but maybe should have checked out other member reviews before stepping into this... because I agreed with a lot of the critiques.

Eli had a lot of potential but didn't hit the mark for a great character and her development seemed to lag. The book dragged and the plot wasn't all there for me. It felt like too many different ideas frankensteined together into one incohesive piece. Other characters lacked depth and development and I genuinely only semi-felt interested in Eli.

This could have gone to much better places, and I'm super disappointed that it just wasn't there for me.

Oh man… I was really hoping to enjoy this book but I just really… didn’t. It fell very flat in my honest opinion.

I started reading this during lockdown and the the book was dragging for me. I then lost my cousin to COVID which kinda put me in a reading slump and I only just picked it back up and I’m afraid it didn’t get any better :(.

The only reason I kept reading is because Eli seemed to be interesting and what she was up to, but the book was still dragging so much that it took me forever to finish it.

I’m afraid it really wasn’t for me which is a total shame

I had high hopes for this book. The plot and story-line description sound amazing but I was a disappointed overall.

Eli had so much potential to be a strong protagonist, but she comes off more uncertain and slightly desperate through the story in a chaotic way, especially through the second half of the book.

The plot was difficult for me to understand because Eli is desperate to please those around her and do well so that she can simply exist, but then she starts having some existential crisis during an easy mission. The second half of the book was like someone else just took over and started writing in a completely different style for a new world.

I had a hard time keeping up with what was going on and how the world came together.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for sending a free copy for an honest review.

A really great book for every young adult. I find a little bit difficult to sympathize with the main character but overall a great read.
3 stars
thank you so much to Dundurn for this arc in exchange for an honest review

The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass was an okay book. Not going to lie, I was really excited to dive into this because I love the cover and the book summary. I thought this was going to be an intriguing story about an assassin who was made by witches to go into the human world and kill ghosts.

SO, this story started off so slow for me. I can't say it picks up because the entire book just dragged for me. Which, again.. honestly, disappoints the living hell out of me. First off, you meet Eli and she is kind of an interesting assassin. She is probably the only reason I kept reading because I just wanted to know more about her and her little missions. Yet, I was still so bored. Beyond bored and slightly confused.

Besides Eli, we got to meet some side characters. They were okay and kind of riveting but nothing could redeem this book for me. There was lots going on and maybe too much. I really wanted to like this book and I'm sad that I couldn't.

I received this eARC on NetGalley for an honest review.

The story was fine. Nothing new that blew me out of the water. The premise was interesting and the cover is gorgeous.

Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for the advanced e-reader copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

I really loved this cover, it is so beautiful, and I cannot stop looking at it, and the plot couldn't be better, I love everything about it.

When reading the excerpt for this book I expected something very different from what I actually read. I could see the direction that the author was attempting to go for (an Alice in Wonderland type logic based around a magic world) but it came off very confusing and hard to track. The storyline was very difficult to follow and near the end, I felt as if there were several different novels chopped up and randomly inserted into the ending Near the middle there was a nice flow of storytelling in the form of a quest and the characters were getting more depth, but it was torn down by the last 20%. This is the main reason for the little amount of stars given to this title.
On the good side;
The author included very good representation of the LGBTQ+ community. For fantasy novels, many times, the representation feels forced or not genuine and it can be very surface level. This however was not. With the author themselves being nonbinary this is also an own voices story. So overall the representation was very good.
The author also used very beautiful descriptors and metaphors throughout this book. These helped give the book an ethereal magical quality.
This was not a bad book, in fact, it would have been quite good if the plot had been easier to follow. Personally, I believe when a plot is extremely difficult to follow, the book itself falls apart.