EXTASIA

Teenage witches take down the patriarchy.

The Barrow family—young teen Blessing and her older sister, who’s just taken the saint’s name Amity—live in Haven, the only human settlement to survive the wars that destroyed The World That Once Was. Living in a White society supposedly chosen by God, governed by men, and ruled by a religious text called the Sanctificat, illiterate Amity is excited to take up the red hood of the saints and open herself up to visitations during which community members physically assault holy girls in a warped ritual. Over the course of 61 chapters, Amity sets out to save her village from mysterious and grisly murders, finds and joins a multiracial coven of witches powered by a supernatural force called extasia, changes her name to Rage, falls in love with a fellow saint-turned-witch, unravels the truth around her disgraced mother, and learns information about humanity’s fate that upends everything she has been taught. The entertaining but derivative core of the story, which is weakened by allegories that are blunt and overwrought, would have been better served by getting to the various points without so much meandering. This doorstopper borrows at times from classic and contemporary White feminist literature with a blend of science and magic.

Lacking a punch.