Island Witch

By: Amanda Jayatissa

Narrated by: Isuri Wijesundara

"Every once in a while, a book comes along that drops you into another world and takes you places you never could imagine. This is that book. An astounding accomplishment!"
—R. L. Stine, author of Goosebumps

Set in nineteenth-century Sri Lanka and inspired by local folklore, Island Witch follows the daughter of a traditional demon-priest—relentlessly bullied by peers and accused of witchcraft herself—tries to solve the mysterious attacks that have been terrorizing her coastal village.

Being the daughter of the village Capuwa, or demon-priest, Amara is used to keeping mostly to herself. Influenced by the new religious practices brought in by the British Colonizers, the villagers who once respected her father’s craft have turned on the family. Yet, they all still seem to call on him whenever supernatural disturbances arise.

Now someone—or something—is viciously seizing upon men in the jungle. But instead of enlisting Amara’s father’s help, the villages have accused him of carrying out the attacks himself.

As she tries to clear her father’s name, Amara finds herself haunted by dreams that eerily predict the dark forces on her island. And she can’t shake the feeling that it’s all connected to the night she was recovering from a strange illness, and woke up, scared and confused, to hear her mother’s frantic cries: No one can find out what happened.

Good for Her

The writing wasn't my favorite overall but it was simple and concise and easy to read.
The story was very enlightening

There’s something watching in the jungle

This audiobook made me feel like I was sitting by a campfire, or staying up late at a sleepover hearing a sister or auntie telling one of her famous spooky stories. It’s plotted more like a classic fable than a modern thriller, but it still has a few twists and kept me guessing till the end. Perfect if you’re in a witchy mood, feeling vengeful, or ready to burn a little with that rage that has stalked women for as long as they have known the injustices of men.

Middling til excellent final hour

Most of the novel reads as sort of pro forma YA standard, very little happens except everyone is awful to Amara all the time. I would describe 95% of this book as what would happen if Jane Austen wrote Charles Dickens-style characters and set it in Sri Lanka. You’ll notice that none of that hints at a horror designation, because this book is not horror.

The “twists” are pretty heavily telegraphed from page 1 (except for a single plot point near the end that feels completely non sequitur) so there aren’t any plot surprises. There is zero suspense, zero peril, almost no drama or tension. However, the story becomes a completely different book in the final hour and really shifts to the next level. The ending is surprisingly excellent for a book that, until that point, had all the subtlety of a rhinoceros hiding behind a fern. I was truly shocked with how things shook out, despite knowing what the “reveal” would be. A little bit too much so with one of the final plot points, in that it was so far out of left field as to feel slightly absurd.

I was going to give this book 3 stars til I got to that last hour, which bumped it up to 4. To be honest, I’d give the overall plot a 2, but I want to support authors who give us settings we don’t often experience. 19th century Sri Lanka was a really interesting backdrop, and the author did a very good job of evoking the place and the customs, even if her 21st century language and word choice derailed the experience at times.

Overall, I would’ve loved to have seen more build up and bread crumbs to the last hour’s payoff, instead of just a left-turn shift that, while great, felt tonally inconsistent with literally everything up to that point.

Haunting

Haunting Feminine Rage at its finest. Read it. Learn from it. Feel the pain of it.