Review: Hexes and Exes

Hexes and Exes by Sarina Dorie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this straight after the previous book (I got them both from Netgalley at the same time for review), and so the two blend together a little in my mind. This one, however, takes the slightly squicky sexual elements present in the previous book (notably an encounter with a pit full of disembodied hands) and turns them up to 11. We have a siren student who can't help drawing boys to her and struggles not to kill them; a weird push-pull dynamic with a fellow teacher who the protagonist is both drawn to and repelled by, who does and doesn't want a relationship with her; various dreams; a unicorn who acts as a minor antagonist while representing the kind of sexist jerk who can't take a hint, and who the protagonist... obliges in a particular way for reasons that seem good to her at the time; and finally, something that would be a spoiler if I detailed it at all. The sexual elements are so numerous, so varied, and so on the edge of just plain wrong that I personally found this an uncomfortable book to read.

Apart from that, it progresses the protagonist's attempts to solve several mysteries, learn more magic, and help her students, though she's still pursuing so many competing goals that the plot's momentum is diminished by rushing in too many different directions at once.

I'm going to have to think about whether I want to continue with the series. They're good, and they've managed to move beyond Harry Potter pastiche to become their own thing, but I generally look for protagonists who have a much stronger sense of who they are, what they're pursuing, and what they are (and more importantly, are not) prepared to do to get it. Perhaps I'll give it one more chance.

View all my reviews