White is for Witching
Books | Fiction / Literary
3.8
(214)
Helen Oyeyemi
Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award One of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists From the acclaimed author of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Gingerbread, and Peaces There’s something strange about the Silver family house in the closed-off town of Dover, England. Grand and cavernous with hidden passages and buried secrets, it’s been home to four generations of Silver women—Anna, Jennifer, Lily, and now Miranda, who has lived in the house with her twin brother, Eliot, ever since their father converted it to a bed-and-breakfast. The Silver women have always had a strong connection, a pull over one another that reaches across time and space, and when Lily, Miranda’s mother, passes away suddenly while on a trip abroad, Miranda begins suffering strange ailments. An eating disorder starves her. She begins hearing voices. When she brings a friend home, Dover’s hostility toward outsiders physically manifests within the four walls of the Silver house, and the lives of everyone inside are irrevocably changed. At once an unforgettable mystery and a meditation on race, nationality, and family legacies, White is for Witching is a boldly original, terrifying, and elegant novel by a prodigious talent.
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Author
Helen Oyeyemi
Pages
304
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2014-02-04
ISBN
069815729X 9780698157293
Community ReviewsSee all
""It is useful, instructive, comforting to show that you are not alone in your history. So I have done you good and now, some harm."<br/><br/>I'm going to be upfront with you - I liked White is for Witching, but I sure as hell did not understand all of it. I'm going to do my best to write this review, and I'm 100% open to discussion if you feel like you grasped something that I didn't. I want to understand, but I think a lot of this book went over my head. <br/><br/>Despite my confusion, I really enjoyed reading White is for Witching. Maybe my confusion was supposed to be part of my reading experience since the characters are also confused. This was my introduction to Helen Oyeyemi, and her writing is so beautiful. Her words are fairy tale-esque, and hauntingly descriptive. <br/><br/>This book divides its time between a few different characters, and I'm pretty sure the house was one of the narrators. It took me a bit to figure out what was going on. White is for Witching has some great spooky scenes surrounding the house. I saw some other reviews referecing The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and I totally agree with this. Everything points to ghosts as a horror reader, but it's never entirely clear what is in the main character's head, and what isn't. <br/><br/>I feel like I didn't fully understand what this book was trying to say about racism. I saw an article talking about the ghosts representing racism, and I need to read more about it to understand. There's racism occurring with certain characters, which I got, but I feel like there's a bigger message that I missed (based on the article I read). I'm just confused about a lot of things. <br/><br/>I know it sounds like I didn't enjoy this book, but I really did. I lost a little interest in the middle, but it looped back around. I'm not sure what happened at the end, and this review is probably basically useless to you. I recommend reading the book, and checking out other reviews that are not written by me 😂. I'm reading back over my notes, and there's so much more to add, but I'm going to cut off my rambling now. <br/>"
Emily
"Very beautifully written, the only reason for the low stars is that it is not a writing style I enjoyed, so I was not able to enjoy the story very much. "
Ashley Dunn
"I absolutely LOVED this book. The atmosphere have this book such an eerie feel. It's that feeling I look for when choosing my next novel."
Stephee Melucci
"I don't even know how to rate this book, but the author is amazing."
Tawny George