If you’re looking for witches, baking, and a fair helping of coven drama, Uncharmed is the book for you. At its center is Annie Wildwood, a ‘perfect’ witch who strives to please everyone with her baked goods, time, and talents. She thinks she’s happy until she sees another side of life and it blows her world wide open. It’s a winding road both cozy and harried, with plenty of spell practice and fight scenes alike. It’s the story of a witch trying to figure out what she wants from life when she’s spent all of her days trying to be what everyone else wants. I found it to be heartwarming and the perfect witchy book for fall.

The Best Bits

A Few of My Favorite Things

Annie Herself

I was a big fan of Annie as a character. She’s frustrating at times, especially at the beginning of the book, and you kind of want to yell at her as these terrible people take advantage of her. Some of them just need someone to talk to and she’s always been that person for everyone, but it’s frustrating to see nobody reciprocate with her. It was honestly heartbreaking to realize she is taking on the burdens of the dead and the living in order to cast a perfection spell that smoothes out everything in her life, just so she can fit into the box that’s been created for her. I admittedly wanted so much more from the romantic relationship, but the little glimpses we had were solid growth for her character. I was happy with her arc and how far she’d come by the end, even if it was a bit slow and incredibly infuriating at times. 

The World of Magic

For me, witch books are all about the magical world. Uncharmed features your typical magical world that’s relatively softened at the edges. There’s plenty of magical content, both the practical everyday kind and the fighting and fireball kind. We get to see Annie run the gamut as she tries to teach Maeve how to control her out of control magic. The world itself is filled with creatures who are drawn to magic, which was a great touch, and highlights nature-based magic a few times in a compelling way. Everything came together nicely to create a solid canvas for the story.

The Meanest Mean Girls

This is a favorite thing that I absolutely hated. The author did such a good job of making the exclusive coven witches horrible people that I just loathed every time they waltzed onto the page. They are horrible and I couldn’t stand their interactions with each other and with Annie. They are unsupportive, manipulative, and take this generous, goodhearted protagonist for granted and it just made me so mad. I was thrilled by the ending and the eventual face-off as she realizes they’re the worst and she can do so much better.