First, thank you Netgalley and Orbit for the advanced readers copy in exchange for a review. This book is good, really good. It's well researched and the prose flows smoothly. The narrative pulled me in, and I couldn't put this book down which hasn't happened to me lately with some of the books I've read. I would highly recommend this book to my friends.

This book had me hooked from start to finish! The Book of Gothel is an entertaining tale that takes the story of Rapunzel and shows us the side of the witch who put her there. Mary McMyne shows that this story truly starts years earlier, long before Rapunzel is born. From the perspective of Haelewise we see a young witch who goes from hearing mysterious, magical stories from her mother to actually living in one. This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys exploring the darker, more mysterious side of fairy tales!

I really enjoyed this book! The storytelling was very fitting for a fairytale. The writing style was very reminiscent of The Year of the Witching and Wicked.

Haelewise had so much growth over the course of the story and I was so proud of her and the choices she made even when they were difficult.

The cast of characters were well crafted. I had a little issue remembering who some members of the royal family were but not so much that it took away from my enjoyment.

The whole book I was wondering when Rapunzel would come into the story and I absolutely loved the way author included her into the book. The twist on the classic tale was so well done that I could really believe that this is the true story.

The magic mixed with Christianity was interesting. I'm agnostic and grew up in a pretty toxic religious family so typically books with Christianity mixed in can frustrate me but this was done in a great way.

I think fans of retellings should definitely read this book unless they are a reader that needs a lot of action to stay interested. This book was much slower than what I normally read but the author made me care so much about the characters that I didn't mind just sort of following along with Haelewise as she grew up and settled into her place in the world.

Four stars. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. I’ve been a long time fan of the Disney movie version of the story of Rapunzel, so when I saw this book come across my social media feed, I immediately added this book to my Amazon wish list, and was lucky to get a copy through Netgalley. And I ended up enjoying this book. I liked that it focused on the character of Mother Gothel, that it spun her in a new light, and didn’t paint her as a villain. It gave her a history and backstory that you don’t normally see in this particular story or its variations. I definitely will be buying a copy of this book when it comes out later this month.

We all know the story of Rapunzel and how her mother gave up her newborn so she could satisfy her cravings for rampion while she was pregnant . THIS IS NOT THAT STORY. This is a tale told through the writings of Mother Gothel, the witch that raised the fair Rapunzel. It tells how she ended up in the forest in the mist enshrouded castle as a young girl named Haelewise after she is left alone after the death of her mother and the remarriage of her father. You follow Haelewise through heartaches, heartbreaks and watch her gain courage and strength as she faces the challenges that are thrown her way. You will learn how she and Rapunzel came to be together and how her story truly ends . Well worth the read. Thank you Redhook and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The cover of this book is what initially interested me. I loved the fairytale and historical aspects of the story. The story was well researched and well written.

I wasn’t completely invested in the characters which made me rush through the book unfortunately. I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I thought I would. I felt there wasn’t a real “villain” and there should have been. It would have made the story a lot more exciting.

The Book of Gothel was an interesting read and I did enjoy most of it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this book!!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the chance to review this book.
I loved this one. I love retellings of fairytales and this one was really enjoyable.
I love the backstory given and it was an all around good read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Red Hook books for my copy of The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne in exchange for an honest review. It publishes July 26, 2022.
What a great book! This was just the fantasy and fairytale retelling I needed. I loved that this gave a back story to mother Gothel. I loved how magic and history were threaded together. If you’re into fairytale retellings, absolutely give this a go!

I'm always up for a new take on old fairytales. "The Book of Gothel" gets extra credit for including details from the lives of medieval women and linking them to the more fantastical stories readers are familiar with. The twists and turns, discussion of class, and intricate magic system kept me reading until late in the night.

everyone knows the story of rapunzel and her tower, but not about the woman who put her there.

this story is a manuscript written by haelewise, the villain, to describe her life and explain that maybe she isn't the villain after all.

i enjoyed how this story started and ended with a professor, gert, who is asked to translate the manuscript of haelewise, which bled into the book being told like a story, making it felt even more like a fairytale when reading it.

i have a soft spot for villains, so when i found out there was a retelling about the villain in rapunzel i knew i had to get my hands on it. haelewise was written in such a lovely way. being an outcast in her village, she was already villainized from the beginning. you see her grappling with being different from the others, being constantly isolated and bullied, and how that influences her in her later years. the sympathy i felt for her was unimaginable. she lost her mother, one of the only people who truly understood her, at such a young age and was left with people who hated her. the grief she was experiencing felt like it was coming off the page and into me. it was so heartbreaking to read at times.

i also enjoyed the world building, it was relatively easy to follow. the story was slow at times, especially in the middle, but i enjoy slower books when i like the characters so i was engaged the whole time. the story stayed true to its' name "gothel" and was focused on mostly that, and less on "rapunzel." i'm very happy about this because it's supposed to be about haelewise's life and gothel is an extremely important place to both her story and rapunzel's.

while parts of this made me mad at times, such as any part with matthäus (i did not like him sorry), that didn't overshadow my overall enjoyment of the book and haelewise as a character. she was stubborn and a little annoying at times but she was overall extremely strong, even when dealing with so much.

i really enjoyed this book and i will definitely be looking out for future books written by this author.

thank you netgalley for this giving me this arc in exchange for an honest review!

This book was very different, and I really enjoyed it. I loved Rapunzel, so I thought I’d like this one!

"This dark, lush, and beautiful reimagining of the story of Rapunzel presents the witch's perspective in this tale of motherhood, magic, and the stories we pass down to our children.

Everyone knows the tale of Rapunzel in her tower, but do you know the story of the witch who put her there?

Haelewise has always lived under the shadow of her mother, Hedda - a woman who will do anything to keep her daughter protected. For with her strange black eyes and even stranger fainting spells, Haelewise is shunned by her village, and her only solace lies in the stories her mother tells of child-stealing witches, of princes in wolf-skins, of an ancient tower cloaked in mist, where women will find shelter if they are brave enough to seek it.

Then, Hedda dies, and Haelewise is left unmoored. With nothing left for her in her village, she sets out to find the legendary tower her mother used to speak of - a place called Gothel, where Haelewise meets a wise woman willing to take her under her wing.

But Haelewise is not the only woman to seek refuge at Gothel. It’s also a haven for a girl named Rika, who carries with her a secret the Church strives to keep hidden. A secret that reveals a dark world of ancient spells and murderous nobles behind the world Haelewise has always known...

Told from her own perspective, The Book of Gothel is a lush, historical retelling filled with dark magic, crumbling towers, mysterious woods, and evil princes. This is the truth they never wanted you to know, as only a witch might tell it."

I have always been obsessed with the story of Rapunzel and still remember being four or five and being shocked my teacher didn't know how to spell her name. She forever went down in my estimation.

This is a whole new version of someone we thought we knew, and I absolutely loved it!

I love the way this story was told, we begin with a professor in the present day who gets an email about an ancient manuscript that someone wants her to translate. As she opens the book and begins to read and translate the story begins to unfold before us. This is the story of Haelwise and how she began her life as a young girl loved and a bit smothered by her mother, and how she grows up to become Mother Gothel the woman in the original tale who kidnapped Rapunzel and kept her hidden in her tower. This tale is both similar and different in the best ways.

Haelwise grows up in a village that thinks she is different, they don't want anything to do with her, then something happens and she has to flee the village and that's the real beginning of the story. She finds a tower and a woman within that teaches her about the old ways, she learns about herself and her family and what she will do for what she believes is right.

This is a slower-paced book, as we are following Haelwise from childhood to old age, but I flew through it and it completely sucked me in. I loved it from beginning to end, and can't wait to see what else Mary McMyne will come out with next!

The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne
This book was captivating! I enjoyed the retelling of Haelwise’s story and learning more about her history as a witch. The religious elements in the story spun a tale which some might find too over the top and this brings me to caution readers who might find religion to be a sensitive topic. Personally, it was depicted in a way that I enjoyed.
The love story is so sweet and devastating at the same time. The authors writing made these scenes so tender and romantic. I loved the relationship and felt Haelwise’s pain. She goes through so many obstacles and grows so much. The scenery is described in such detail, I was swept away into the environment.
🌟🌟🌟🌟/5

Thank you to @netgalley and @redhookbooks for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: Absolutely Love It/All Time Favorite, 5 stars

The Book of Gothel is a standalone historical fantasy novel that tells the real story of Mother Gothel, the infamous witch from Rapunzel's fairy tale. Our opener/prologue begins by following a woman who is chasing tenure at UNC and whose area of focus is women in old fairy tales/manuscripts. She is contacted by a woman in Germany who has found an old manuscript in the basement of her grandmother's home. The story is the manuscript that this woman reads, and it turns out to be the story of Haelewise who has become known by the name of the tower she lives in, Gothel, and is setting the record straight as to what really happened with the princess she stole.

We follow Haelewise from the time she is a young girl as she grows up with her doting mother and distant father. She is shunned in her Christian village as she grows older due to her strange fainting spells and her unusual eyes. People believe that she's been possessed by a demon. Haelewise's mother attempts to treat her using the old ways, and her father by exorcism and other holy remedies, but nothing seems to work. Something occurs that causes Haelewise to flee and seek sanctuary with the wise woman who lives in the woods, and the story goes on from there.

I was instantly grabbed by the opener, but as we got into the story, I was getting slightly nervous because I don't always love the low magic setting. However, the writing and the story itself really pulled me in, and I couldn't put this book down. I was surprised by just how much I loved it. Also, there were a lot more magical elements as the story continued.

I think my favorite thing about this book were the vibes. It was really well-written, and ended up being so compulsively readable. I loved the dark cottagecore vibes, and it was the type of fantasy that felt like it could almost be real - like somewhere in the woods these characters existed, worshiping the Mother, and performing their healing and midwifery for their neighbors. It ended up being much more magical feeling than I anticipated.

Something that this story really explores is how Haelewise and others who follow the old ways can live in the tension of the Christian religion and the "pagan" religion that it replaced. I honestly loved how Haelewise was trying to figure out where she fell in her beliefs and what that meant for her life and her relationships.

I really enjoyed following Haelewise and seeing her grow over the course of the novel. My enjoyment of her as a character sort of snuck up on me, but I really appreciated her spirit and determination to follow her own path. Overall there are some really interesting themes explored in this novel, and I ended up loving the historical aspect of this with integration of some real life figures.

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. The Book of Gothel releases on July 26, 2022. I highly recommend this if you are looking for a break from all the Greek myth retellings but still want to revisit a familiar folk tale. It had major Bear and the Nightingale vibes, and was just a really enjoyable read.

I was immediately excited about this retelling of Rapunzel. I love reading fairy tales and diving into the backgrounds of supposed villains, seeing what choices led them to become evil. I was not disappointed, The Book of Gothel was unlike any I've read before. Haelewise is the daughter of a midwife and fisherman, who suffers from fainting spells and is constantly worried her small town will think her possessed by a demon because of it. Her mother believes in ancient ways and tries to find her a cure, as Haelewise is her whole life. When her mother unexpectedly becomes ill and dies, Haelewise finds herself all alone in the world and sets out for the Tower of Gothel where she finds some answers, but mostly more questions about who she really is. Add in some rival kingdoms and murder and it's enough to keep you racing through to the end of the book.

I found myself immersed in the whole magical world McMyne creates. I loved seeing the network of powerful women who consume the alrune fruit and pay tribute to the Mother. While they are all so different from one another in life and station, they still help other women who are in need. I thought the love story was sweet and didn't detract at all from the strong, independent woman appeal of this tale. It would have been nice to see a deeper relationship between Haelewise and Mother Kunegunde, but that's just a personal wish. The fact that the entire story doesn't revolve around Rapunzel, the part we all think we know, was great. The Prologue and Epilogue were interesting approaches that confused me at first, but did help bring the story full circle.

Overall this was a fantastic take on one of the main characters in Rapunzel. Parts of it were a bit dark, but any lover of fairy tales should go in expecting that! Readers who enjoyed retellings like Circe' or Kaikeyi should like this book as well. I look forward to reading other books from Mary McMyne. I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley for my opinions.

The Book of Gothel is an incredibly well-researched fairytale, absolutely stunning in the way its written. There's a magic to it that held me from start to finish, I literally read this in a single sitting - couldn't put it down. I love reimainings and retellings, and this one is INCREDIBLE - Rapunzel eat your heart out, tbh. I loved that we get this story from Mother Gothel, but not the Mother we know from past tellings of the story. This story is filled with German influences, and medieval details that make it very obvious the author did a lot of leg work when it came to accuracy.

With the resurgence of modernized retellings lining the current market's bestseller shelves, I think this is a very worth addition to anyone's collection.

3.5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Redhook for an ARC of The Book of Gothel in exchange for an honest review.

Man, this one is… complicated. It’s got a lot of themes/elements that are usually catnip for me, but it just didn’t pan out as well as I wanted it to. Despite that, I think that The Book of Gothel was generally well-written and accomplished the goal it set out to do.

The Book of Gothel is a villain origin story/Rapunzel retelling, giving voice to the witch who locked Rapunzel in a tower. In McMyne’s retelling, the witch is named Haelewise and started out as just a regular girl in a village, albeit ostracized and suffering from fainting spells. After her mother dies, she leaves town and travels to the tower of Gothel, where she finds her grandmother and starts learning about midwifery and also a little bit of magic. Then she meets a princess and everything goes awry, and she travels across medieval Germany, guided by a voice and her own desperate need to know things, even things she probably shouldn’t know.

The thing is, I think that this is a really good debut, and that McMyne successfully tells the story she wanted to tell. I also really enjoyed the framing device that she uses in the prologue and epilogue, and I think it added a nice depth to the story. The Book of Gothel is also obviously incredibly well-researched and is wonderfully atmospheric: the world McMyne crafted felt super real and lived in.

I do wish that the villain was more nuanced and less Obviously Evil, and that Haelewise maybe leaned into villainy a little bit more. I guess I wished that with this particular retelling, the main character was less misunderstood hero and more morally gray and cunning. I also felt like her love interest was sort of just… there. The pacing also felt uneven at times, and I remember being surprised that so much time was spent on Haelewise’s childhood. Still, I think this sort of thing is a feature of most retellings, so it’s mostly just something to keep in mind while reading.

Apart from those quips, I found most of what didn’t work for me was on me and not the book/author/writing. Usually, exploring the relationship between Christianity/organized religion and pagan/folk religions is a theme that always works for me, and I usually love medieval settings. While I wish there was a bit more exploration about the wolf skin, I think that on the whole I did enjoy these aspects of the story, which is why it was frustrating that the novel as a whole didn’t work for me. In part, it’s because there was (to me) an unexpected large focus on motherhood/being a mother, which is a theme I am super picky about. Haelewise’s inner narrative of needing to be a mother didn’t quite work for me, especially because I wasn’t all that compelled by her love interest.

I did like that she was suspicious about all the new information she was given, since she was so sheltered and isolated during her childhood, but it I thought it felt a bit out of place that despite the fact she’s hesitant to fully believe anything she’s told, she readily trusted the voice that lead her to the tower of Gothel without even once questioning that that was maybe not what it seemed. Haelewise’s absolute need to know everything was difficult to get through, since a lot of the time she just really struggled to take no for an answer, even when she was told she either couldn’t know yet or because her timing was absolutely horrible. It was also hard for me to watch her make ill-advised choice after ill-advised choice and then be surprised she’s suffering the consequences. Mostly, I just found her a difficult character to get a point-of-view perspective from.

Ultimately, The Book of Gothel was interesting and I think it will work for most people, especially if they love fairy tale retellings. It was a good debut with great attention to detail and is very well researched. I think McMyne is an author to keep an eye on, and while this one didn’t work for me (and I do genuinely wish I liked it more), I would recommend it to most people, and think it’s worth a read.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Man, "The Book of Gothel" was one of my most anticipated releases for 2022, so you can imagine how bummed I am that it did not work for me AT ALL. Honestly, I ended up skimming the last half because I was totally uninterested by that point but just stubbornly refused to DNF it.

Credit where it's due, "The Book of Gothel" ("TBOG") is insanely well researched and super atmospheric. I had a strong sense of place the whole time I was reading and I thought McMyne did a good job crafting an atmosphere that mirrored the mental state of Haelewise, our MC.

Unfortunately, I absolutely hated Haelewise. Like, found her to be full-on boring to read about and honestly kind of a pathetic character, which is problematic because TBOG is a first-person narrative told through her eyes. She was just SO PASSIVE. Like, even towards the climax of the book - and using the term "climax" is a stretch because I didn't feel any real tension - I just felt like she was reacting to things instead of making them happen.

Also, the pacing of this was slow AF. Now, I don't inherently mind slow novels, because they give you time to spend with the character; but when you can't stand the characters then a slow pace is just torturous.

I honestly think I'd have liked this more if McMyne had just leaned into writing a novel about a villain, instead of trying to re-write the fairy tale to make Haelewise a sympathetic character. It seems like a lot of these recent "feminist re-tellings of famous stories" are doing this - re-writing the story to make the female character the hero. I don't have an inherent problem with this approach, but I've just felt like they tend to be so boring to read. Like, just give me a bad bish who is unapologetically living her life and villain-ing it up! I beg you!!

One of the better fairy tale retellings to come along in the past few years. The story of Rapunzel sits mainly in the background of this piece, not really coming into effect until the end of the book, which weaves magic with historical fiction to tell the story of Mother Gothel. I found the book well written, and the characters engaging and enjoyable. The only thing that really took me out of it is an strange choice of framing device. There's not enough of it to make me care about it, just enough to be a distracting. You could easily excise it from the book and lose absolutely nothing. I am puzzled by the choice to include it at all.