Review: The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs

Discussion

Let’s talk sequels that are marketed as stand alones:

First thing, this is not a stand alone. Not one bit. The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs is supposed to be a continuation of the world Katherine Howe created in The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane from 2009, but not a sequel. In fact, no where on the jacket blurb does it even reference this earlier book.

Make no mistake, this is a sequel and if you haven’t read The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, you will be spending about 80% of this book playing catch up, always one step behind. I simply continued to read it because I am a stubborn mule …

The other 20%?

You’ll spend bored out of your mind on academia.

Let’s Talk Book Pet-Peeves 

This brings me to a huge book pet peeve of mine: Books that are really textbooks of information, showing how much research an author has done or worse, as a podium of bragging “look how smart I am”.

That sounds mean, looking back on that sentence I feel a little bitchy… I can appreciate the research this author did, I can appreciate how much she idolizes the tenure track, the masters class, the PhD, the loathing of undergrads, the academia, the academia, the academia. But why not just write your own textbook? I mean, this reads very similarly to my textbooks from University sociology and history classes …

Let’s Talk Characters & World:

I am coming down hard on this book and truly wanted to find something to like, but this main character is so horribly unlikeable! She is whiney, and selfish, and really treats her finance Sam like garbage which left me wondering why she was even researching a method to save him? If you hate him this much, maybe you just want to let him die and save him from his miserable life with you?

Further, I listened to this on audiobook and the troubles I had with Connie were exacerbated by the narrators grating voice for her – really she just sound like a spoiled 13 year old brat. What 30-something adult woman says “like, oh my gawd” so bloody much?? Especially one who purports to be so studious, so lingual, and so pompously loquacious.

The rest of the characters were alright, but mostly underdeveloped or ignored. I would really have loved more time with her mom and actually knowing/learning what kind of magic these women posses. But that could very well be the basis of the first book, that one that you don’t need to read in order to follow along here …

Overall Thoughts:

While this was advertised as a stand alone novel, it was anything but. This is a straight up sequel to The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane Katherine Howe wrote ten years ago. Drowning in academia, information dumping, mind numbing research and a horribly unlikeable character, this unfortunately wasn’t the book for me. If it was supposed to romantic, it wasn’t. If it was supposed to be magical, the magic was never explained. If it was supposed to be spooky & witchy, it came too late to really make an impression. Disappointing.

TBR Ranking: Low

For Fans Of/Better Options:

The Fortune Teller

Written by Gwendolyn Womack

Published by Picador USA

You can find it here: Bookshop.org