When I first started reading The Witch & The City, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. However, this was a book full of whimsy, magic and linguistics. The language and prose was sing-song; lyrical. The disjointed-ness of the book was overly masterful in way to mirror the remembered pieces of past lives for our main character that came back to her in bits and pieces. I haven't had this much fun with language in a long time. A very unique book with Shakespearean elements ending in a plot twist revealing the true mastery of Burnett's writing.

Lush prose and weird witchy vibes! I know the writing style isn't for everyone, however I loved it! I enjoyed looking up definitions of words and really thinking about the content. The storyline seems intentionally disjointed--a reflection of the protagonists lack of memory--which makes it so enjoyable to experience the world as she does. And how it all comes together at the end? Perfection.

Also, this is a book for fans of the podcast Welcome to the Night!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I was really intrigued by the description of this book, but I was very confused as I was reading it. I was about 20% through the book and I actually went back and reread the description, because I did not understand what was going on. I didn't care for the style of writing, it felt very choppy, even though many reviews say it was lyrical and poetic, I did not feel that way. The story line did get better and by the end I was understanding it much more, and it was full of action and suspense but I feel like it took too long to get there. Some of the characters were interesting, and I wish there was more depth to them, as we didn't meet them until the end.

Fantasy
Witchy Mystery


After being magically reincarnated, a mysterious witch finds herself on a floating prison-city in an endless abyss. She has no memory of her past except jumbled snippets of someone else’s memories stored haphazardly in her mind of infinite forgetting. All she understands is the word ‘escape’.

Her magical chicken-legged house, holds keys and clues from her previous self who was a witch named Hecate. When Hecate discovers that her time is nearly up she makes as much provision and as possible for her future self to escape the prison she had failed to do herself by leaving letters hexes, spells and magical ingredients to help Oneirotheria make her escape.

This book gave me the same vibes as ‘Howl’s moving castle’ with its steampunk elements and the moving house with its own personality.

Osylum is a city described as a circular maze divided into nine wards with 13 walls including the sky. There is no sun, moon nor stars that surround the city. As she treks through the city she finds quirky characters and cryptic graffiti clues along walls and buildings that’s been left by a mystery person who knew her previous self.

If you are an avid fantasy reader and love mysteries then this is the book for you.
The author did a fantastic job with the writing and has an extensive vocabulary.

A huge thank you to Netgalley and South Window Press for a copy of this e-ARC in exchange for this honest review.

I received an advanced copy of this title through NetGalley in exchange for this review.

An intriguing read full of intense dialogue, The Witch & The City takes readers on a journey of one traveler seeking wisdom in the land of Osylum where not everything is what it seems. Along the way she meets many who would seem to try to help or trap her, and she must use her own wit and growing wisdom to tell friend from foe.

Told with rich words and heightened text, The Witch & The City is full of imagination and intrigue that keeps the reader engaged to the end.

When I first read the preview for this book, I thought it was such a unique premise and I was really excited to read it. Overall, I think that it's an interesting book, but there were some parts that I struggled to get through.

Starting with the good! First, the world-building here is great; the book takes place across the nine wards of Osylum, which just so happens to be a floating prison city. As you progress through the story, Burnett is able to provide a rich background that seamlessly transports you there. It's easy to picture things like the narrow streets, the graffiti-covered buildings, the puppets, and the Wardens gliding around. This leads to the second part of the book that I enjoyed, which is the prose.

Jake Burnett can certainly write! While I found myself off-balance for a lot of this story, that is clearly the author's intention given the basic foundation for the main character. Oneirotheria (what a name - that I still have no idea how to pronounce!) emerges from an egg (?!) to find that she has prior memories that don't belong to her and she has no idea how she got them. The vast majority of the book revolves around Oneirotheria having too many words in her head that she can't possibly know and she's trying to work out what it all means. Burnett has a way of trapping the reader in Oneirotheria's confusion; I felt just as overwhelmed and off-kilter as she did! Beyond that, Burnett is really creative and it shows in the little things (e.g., the graffitied sayings on the buildings, the poems sung by the puppets). I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style.

Now to where the book lost me. As I mentioned above, I found parts of the story to be disorienting at times. Again, this is clearly done with intention, but it was so constant throughout that I found it made it difficult for me to really get into the story. It took me some time to get through the book because I had to step away from it more than I would have liked and then come back to it once I felt settled. Unfortunately, this disconnect for me took me out of it.

Another issue that I had (and again, this could just be me) was with some of the plot points. There were parts of the story that I felt were rushed and I wished there was more time spent on them, while there were other instances where I got to a part and I wished it would go faster. I will say that I did enjoy the ending, however, I still felt like there were a lot of questions that were unanswered. I was left with this sense of being presented with a picture of what the final puzzle should look like, but ultimately there were still pieces missing from my puzzle when I was done.

I also think there were a few really interesting secondary characters that I would have liked to learn more about. I think the author does a good job of providing a well-rounded description of Oneirotheria, but the other characters felt somewhat neglected.

Overall, I don't think this book would be for everyone. However, I would recommend it if you're looking for a quirky and unique story that has a touch of whimsy and a good deal of darkness.

3.5/5

Thanks to NetGalley and the author/publisher for giving me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I ended up liking this book a lot more than I thought I would at the beginning. That's partly due to the writing style, which is very much outside of my comfort zone. Very fancy and poetic. It did take a while to get used to that, but by the end it was fun and it felt rewarding to read.

That writing style also helped the book feel whimsical and fairytale-esque. And for the most part, I really did enjoy that aspect of the book, however, sometimes it also felt like there were many unanswered questions (which I suppose is part of the package when you talk about fairytales, but it still bothered me a bit) in the plot, but otherwise, the plot was great, things moved at a reasonable pace from start to finish, and the ending is very satisfying without being predictable.

The characters are well done. They're mostly unique and distinct from one another, even if we didn't really get too deep into anyone but the main character, who is a great main character. She's written in a way that makes it easy to root for her.

The comparisons to Susanna Clarke's Piranesi is a good one, I think, there are similar things in the premise. This is a story about a character trying to find out information about the world she's living in, and how to escape it, I think that's how much a reader should know about the story. It's one of those books they you wanna get into knowing as little as possible.

📖 Title: The Witch and the City
✍ Author: Jake Burnett
🌍 Country of Origin: USA 🇺🇸
🔖 Genre: Fantasy, Philosophy, Adventure, Romance 🪄💭⚔💕
👥 Favorite Character: Oneirotheria~! 🧙‍♀️
💬 Favorite Quote: "Words are magic, dearest and that is the first thing you should learn. Magic and realer than real. There are more words, than things." - Hecate to the Foundling


I received an eARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to South Window Publishers and NetGalley for this!


This book is a lyrical adventure of self discovery.
This book is a philosophical adventure.
This book is about the power of words.
This book is about <spoiler> grief and love </spoiler>.

How does one discovers itself? That is a question that many people find hard to answer, now add another layer of complexity by 'reincarnating' over and over again until you discover who you are while you rediscover who you are while finding your way in a world both old, new, alien and familiar.

Complex? It definetly is. Charming? It is so too.

Part adventure, part philosophy, all magical and poetic.

The story of Oneirotheria is all of that and trying to explain it is like trying to explain a dream. The names make it sound familiar. The mythos is quite similar to that of ours. This can get quite confusing at times if you're not used to greco-latin names and since it exposes its world in a way so natural, throught the eyes of a foundling witch (read, just re-'born') so you can feel at times that you're supposed to know something and you're not supposed to know it at the same time.

This is not only her story as you will undoubtedly try to reason as the young witch does, asking yourself the reason of so many things and that is why I catalog this as a philosophical adventure. At times we are so absorbed with what we know that we forget that the way to fill our biased heads with new knowledge or ways to see life is by emptying it first of what we know so we can re-learn and by re-learning, we learn more.


The ending twist is a bit unexpected but extremely welcome.

<spoiler> Finding out who she really is the reason for the place to exist and the love story was a pleasant and unexpected surprise! </spoiler>

I cant but recommend this book if you need to re-discover yourself and find the goddess inside, your true power and to re-invent yourself when you need new answers to the same questions.

In Hecate's words, never forget that...

Words are magic, dearest and that is the first thing you should learn. Magic and realer than real. There are more words, than things.

Toodles~!

Rydia ✨

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫 (4.5/5)

This book gripped me from the start. The writing was so good and well executed. I didn't want to stop reading, but my eyes said no as I'm only just getting used to reading eBooks.

I absolutely loved the world and I was surprised how well I could imagine it, even though the book was short. All the weirdness and how things worked was just so cool. It definitely isn't your ordinary world.

I also loved all the characters. The main character was very intriguing and so loopy that she was an absolute blast to follow. Her personality was a delight. The side characters brought in different pieces and changed how the MC thought a little. Love character development, which there was a lot. And how different everyone was, inside and outside!

I did not see the twists coming and they were so well done that they all made sense. I did not see the ending coming. Though I didn't have time to think ahead as everything was so interesting and kept me in that moment. Immersion was fast and lovely.

I'm not sure what was missing from the book, maybe it was just how short it was that took away the half star. The world was quirky and so different from our own that it drew me in from the first page.

Would recommend to anyone who likes fantasy and doesn't mind some quirkiness in the world they'll be thrown in. I'd love to know what happened to the MC after the end, but it's nice to make up your own adventure too.

.

This was recommended to readers who enjoyed Madeline Miller’s Circe and Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, both of which I read and loved. Sadly, this is not on a par for me. The prose and story are complex and confusing, in the early chapters it felt like book two of a series with names, concepts, items I felt I should have been familiar with but wasn’t. Across the board this has received some really good early reviews so if you like fantasy and other-worldly type stuff give it a go but in my opinion it’s a little too much.

Preview copy from @netgalley publication date 24 October 2023

#thewitchandthecity #jakeburnett #bookreview #fantasybooks #canyourecommendagoodbook #bookstagram #netgalley

Thank you to South Window Publishers and NetGalley for an eARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honesty review.

Honestly, I'm a little torn on this book and find it hard to give it a proper rating. It reads so lyrically and has incredible fantasy elements that truly give it a whimsical feel. However, there are times that the direction and plot get really jumbled and I found it very hard to understand, as well as to really feel invested in so many underdeveloped characters. The ending is very sweet and I truly enjoy a spooky Witch themed book in October, so since it's to be out on October 24, 2023 give it a try!

While I enjoyed the overall story, the writing style and word choices made it a bit of a challenging read as I had to stop a number of times to look up words or to reread sentences in order to understand their meaning.

This book was great! The plot, the characters, the pace were incredible. The only reason it wasn’t a five star read for me was it was so “whimsical” and weird (I’m assuming to make you feel as disoriented as the protaganist) that I felt like I was holding on for dear life trying to keep up with what was going on.

I think is a 4.5 stars book for me, but i will give it a 5 because it is really well written. The story is compelling, we know nothing about the leading character, Onerotheria, and nothing about all the other things, like the city, who are her allies (does she have any?), who are her enemies and etc. As the story continues Onerotheria starts to discover some truths but the real motive of the city is revealed just at the end, and I consider it a good one. Maybe someone that is more observant than me could have predicted the secrets before the grand reveal, but I admit that I am a little bit slow. In the end, I think 'The Witch & The City' is a good book, and I could see why the comparison with Piranesi was made (but they are different on the whole). So I recommed it, if you like fantasy and a lyrical prose maybe this book is for you.

*Thank you Netgalley and the South Window Press for the ARC*

Having now finished, I can confidently say I did not expect to love the ending (and our protagonist) as much as I did. There was a twist that I didn’t see coming, and I was really touched by how sweet it ended up being, esp since the book is many things - quirky, odd, cold, heartless, but rarely sweet. The world building was both thorough and thoroughly mysterious. Parts of it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, parts of certain Doctor Who episodes. I liked it a lot! Thank you so much for the ARC, which I was granted access to through NetGalley!

this was okay, but read a little juvenile and i didn't feel connected to the characters or what happens to them at all. i can see other reader enjoying this a lot tho!

— thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the free digital ARC.

Thankful to the author and Netgalley for giving me this as an ARC. All thoughts are my own.

This is such a whimsical book. It reads like a fairytale, and I had a ride getting lost in the story. Love this style and the characters. It takes a minute to get into, but it's pretty fun.

It’s taken me a little while to digest this one. The style is weirdly off putting at first but then something just clicks and it goes down like a cool drink on a hot day. The writing is beautiful and the plot is intriguing. An unusual book that is repeating on me in the best possible way.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. This was my first fantasy book and I must say it was very interesting. I found myself immersing in this world and couldn't wait to see what happened next.

This book get 4.5 stars from only because it wasn’t really my style, i did enjoy how small a book it was, although i did originally struggle to get into it.
The writing style is unique and lyrical which is what I struggled with initially.
This book was the perfect level of confusing and intriguing, the characters were incredible to read about.
I also read Linnaeas voice as Lemongrabs from adventure time and it made the story so much more fun.