Review: The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass by Adan Jerreat-Poole

Expected publication: May 16th 202

Even teenage assassins have dreams.

Eli isn’t just a teenage girl — she’s a made-thing the witches created to hunt down ghosts in the human world. Trained to kill with her seven magical blades, Eli is a flawless machine, a deadly assassin. But when an assignment goes wrong, Eli starts to question everything she was taught about both worlds, the Coven, and her tyrannical witch-mother.

Worried that she’ll be unmade for her mistake, Eli gets caught up with a group of human and witch renegades, and is given the most difficult and dangerous task in the worlds: capture the Heart of the Coven. With the help of two humans, one motorcycle, and a girl who smells like the sea, Eli is going to get answers — and earn her freedom.

I was so excited for this book, I wanted to like it, I gave it so many chances. But this book, in my opinion, is not even close to be ready to be published. This reads like a first draft. I like the overall concept, which is why I gave it two stars, but everything else needs work. The plot is confusing, not completely thought out, lacks any kind of direction. Even after finishing this book, I don’t know what actually happened. I couldn’t explain the storyline at all.
I really appreciated the non-binary characters (overall good LBGTQ+ representation), but none of the characters seemed complete. I couldn’t connect or relate to any of them and they lacked character building. No one seemed to have their own personality.
Overall, I didn’t like this one at all. I feel like this book is far from being ready to publish, regardless that I read this as an ARC. With some editing, I think this book could be good.