A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches
by
Deborah Harkness
read by
Jennifer Ikeda

This was my second attempt at listening to this audiobook. The first time I checked it out I heard from a trusted source that I may like the premise and the world, but that the characters were quite annoying, so much so that they book was not finished by said trusted source. So, I let it sit at home for a week or so debating whether or not I should try, and then had enough other media options that I sent it back unheard. Much More recently, another trusted source was telling me about the impending third book of the trilogy and told me that she had quite liked the first book - this book. I checked it out again and decided I'd give it another try, because if I don't like what I'm listening to, I don't have to finish it. I know this seems obvious, but I tend to finish a lot of crappy things out of some false sense of duty or perhaps a literary contract or some misplaced need for closure.
I made it through the first disk on my second attempt. I fell asleep about halfway through my first time. I almost didn't put the second disk in. I wasn't necessarily bothered by the characters, though I certainly did not feel any attachment to them either, but I was annoyed at several things done by Harkness that in my opinion should have never made it past her editor, and I did vow that if the second disk did not get a whole lot more interesting, that I would be done with the All Souls trilogy. What did she do? Most of the first part of the book takes place at Oxford in the Bodleian Library, and you would get a line like, "Diana, in the library, took the library book and sat down at the library table where she sat up her laptop on the library table next to the library book before she seated herself in the library chair in the library." She just added other adjectives to disguise it, like "musty", "ancient", "wooden", etc. almost in a madlib format. And at one point, she had the main character walk over a foot bridge that "spanned the expanse". Really? You couldn't come up with another term for 'expanse'? I guess at least she didn't say, "she walked over a foot bridge the bridged the bridgeable." or something similar.
I waited until the next day to try with the second disk. And then the third. And then the fourth. I got to the end of my second day of listening thinking exactly what I had been told in the first place - interesting premise and setting, but not too fond of the characters, the two mains who were in fact quite annoying. As our main character Diana has to deal with whom she thinks is her nemesis, Matthew, some interesting things start to happen, even while they are annoying me. At the end of the fourth disk when Matthew convinces Diana to come with him to yoga...and oh by the way Diana who is a witch, is surprised to see that the yoga class is made up solely of other witches and vampires - which by the way Matthew happens to be - and by demons. This is a huge deal because the three races hate each other or fear each other or something, and they never mix. I'm not sure why exactly demons are called demons, but they are as separate from humans as witches and vampires are, but like them look human. I think perhaps it's from them acting like a person who is as if they are possessed by a demon. I understand why witches and demons do yoga, because they are physiologically enough like humans to benefit from it, but I failed to get why vampires would need or want to do yoga. But obviously in this version of Oxford, no one else thinks this is an odd thing.
I was faced with a big decision at this point. I was through the first four of twenty disks and found myself not really caring that much about the characters, but intrigued by the mystery being set up. I also initially hated the way Harkness was handling vampires as they seemed a bit like Twilight vampires - uber-pretty, can walk around in the sunlight, and seem to be easily able to avoid killing humans if that is there predilection. But, we're already getting some explanations of why this is so, and I found her reasons believable. I decided I would give it one more disk and if things didn't get a lot better, then I was done.
Things got better.
Harkness gets better as the book goes along in concerns to the extraneous and repetitive adjectives. She still tends to over do it when the point of view character goes to a new place. What really got me to stay listening was that characters developed. Yes, some of them still are kind of annoying, but you come to find out it's because of character flaws and the way they act and talk is representative of how those particular characters think of themselves - once you get into it and you start finding out what the other characters think of that individual and realize that the opinions can be quite different I was able to see that a certain amount of the initial annoying behavior was setting up for what was going to come later. Plus as the book goes on, you meet some rather likable characters and the last quarter of it adds in some touches of appropriate humor.
This is just one of those books where if you can soldier through the first quarter to third, you will be rewarded in the end. What concerns me is that the person who liked this audiobook didn't like the second book near as much and described it as something I would need to listen to so that I can see how we get form book one to book three. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement. Considering that she liked this book better than I did, I hope I can make it through to the end. I guess I'll know in a couple of days.
The reader for this book does an good job. Sometimes it's not completely clear just based upon her accent which character she is doing. She does try and give each of her characters a unique voice, which works better for some than others. But you can always tell when Diana is speaking, and accept for one conversation you can also always tell when Matthew is speaking. For the others, it is more a case of two French female characters, for example, sounding too similar to just get who they are by the voice.
At the end of the book, I would definitely recommend it, but with all of the caveats mentioned above. I really liked all of the different language bits used, especially the old tongues. And I liked all of the obscure historical references, to both places and books. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the second book is better than just tolerable.

A Discovery of Witches at Powells.com
A Discovery of Witches Audiobook at Amazon.com