I was in a witchy mood when I came across this book at the library, so I decided to give it a go. I hadn't heard much about this author, so I was excited to possibly discover a new favorite. Unfortunately, this book was something of a let down, and though there were some elements I enjoyed, it just didn't come together as a whole.

WRITING: Henderson's prose is not for me, and I can't say I can tell if it's because the book is aimed at a younger audience or if it's because this is a debut novel and thus contains some inexperienced craft. Henderson seems to insert details that don't really matter in an attempt to pad the narrative while over-explaining things so that there is no room for the reader to piece things together themself. Moreover, I felt like Henderson leaned a bit too much on telling, making it hard to get a feel for the world and the relationships between characters.

Henderson also has the tendency to rely on filtering words that kept me an arm's length from the protagonist. There are a lot of constructions like "Immanuelle knew..." or "Immanuelle guessed..." that could have been eliminated to tighten up the prose. I think the prose could also have been improved by eliminating some repetitive descriptions, such as the thousand references to Immanuelle feeling sick or something affliction her belly/throat.

PLOT: The plot of this book follows Immanuelle, a teenage mixed race girl born from a scandalous liasion between her mother and an Outsider father. Immanuelle lives in a place called Bethel, which houses a patriarchal, polygamous religion ruled by a figure called the Prophet. Bethel also exists at the edge of the Darkwood, which is said to be inhabited by witches.

One day, Immanuelle finds herself drawn into the Darkwood and unwittingly participates in a ritual that releases a series of plagues upon Bethel. She finds an unlikely ally in the son and heir of the Prophet - Ezra - and together, they seek to uncover both Immanuelle's parents' past and the dark secrets of the church.

I'm a bit torn because on the one hand, I love a witchy plot that pits people against a corrupt and controlling church. I love the potential feminist message that accompanies stories of witchcraft and I love skewering hypocritical cult leaders. Unfortunately, the plot and worldbuilding of this book was a bit too shallow for that kind of analysis to shine.

Henderson uses a lot of Biblical names and imagery to portray Bethel's religion, but despite looking a lot like Christian fundamentalism, the religion is not Christian. It's a fantasy religion that worships a Father associated with light and rejects a Mother associated with darkness. I understand how using the trappings of Christian fundamentalism gets the point across for Henderson: this is supposed to be a repressive religion. Names that evoke Christian fundamentalism are kind of a shortcut for actual worldbuilding; I know the religion is repressive, but I don't really know what their religion actually entails. Where does the dagger imagery come from? Why multiple wives? I think the story would have felt a lot more grounded if Bethel was rather a cult set in our world and not the dominant religion of a fantasy one.

Lastly, I think Henderson's attention was a little too broadly placed on the concept of "patriarchy." Don't get me wrong - patriarchy bad. But Henderson alludes to a lot of complex intersections between gender, race, power, and religion, and yet does not seem interested in exploring any of them. For example, Immanuelle is mixed race: her mother was white and her father, an Outsider who supposedly had more knowledge of the Mother, was dark-skinned. Yet there is no exploration of how race shapes Immanuelle's life or how church doctrine twists holy scripture against dark-skinned people. There is also a moment when a woman is dying in childbirth and the decision is made to save the life of the baby over the mother. And yet there is also no exploration of themes that connect to a pro-life stance within the church. Even when Immanuelle does realize that the church is hypocritical, it doesn't really feel like a turning point; it seems like Immanuelle had some hint of things all along or else she is Enlightened all at once. There is no gradual unfolding of the horrors of the church - it's bad from the get-go and it feels like Immanuelle is just not able to see it.

CHARACTERS: Immanuelle, our protagonist, is a little hard to be enthusiastic about because it's never quite clear what she wants. Henderson tells us that she cares for her family and for her friend, Leah, but interactions between them are minimal and don't carry a sense of deep love or emotional intimacy. Immanuelle also doesn't seem to struggle with her faith in a way that is narratively interesting; at times, it seemed like she was doubtful of the religious order, but at others, she seemed like she believed or accepted some aspects of its teachings. Rather than dive into the complexities of that, Henderson just made her heroine feel flat.

Ezra, Immanuelle's friend and the heir to the Prophet, is fine. He's the kind of person you'd expect your hero to be: protective, valiant, rejects social norms. He doesn't have much of an arc, which is a shame because there was an opportunity to move him from skeptic to a believer. His gift of Sight is also woefully underused, so I hope that's explored more in the book's sequel.

Supporting characters didn't quite feel fleshed out enough to feel consequential. Immanuelle tells us how much she cares for her family, but she barely has any scenes that establish their closeness. If anything, she seems to be treated rather harshly, so it's difficult to understand why she still adores them. Leah also barely feels like a full character because, despite being Immanuelle's best friend, her only role is to be a victim - never a real confidante and agent in the plot.

The antagonists were also difficult to get a handle on because their actions and motivations didn't make much sense. The Prophet was on the periphery until the end, where he began to make offers that made no sense to me. The Witches were more avatars than real characters, and this would have been fine if the themes of the book were explored more fully.

TL;DR: Despite some delightfully creepy images and some good witchery, The Year of the Witching doesn't quite develop its characters or its worldbuilding, leaving the story to dance around the themes of religion, race, and patriarchy rather than attacking them head-on.