So I admit I didn't love the plot or the story, but I do love what Vaught did with the setting. But then, I'm not the intended audience for this book, and maybe a younger reader would understand that part better than I did. While I appreciate the references to women warriors saving the world and battling evil, I found the idea of one girl fighting against a hurricane and winning hard to believe. I hate to say it, but I feel like the magic/fantasy part of the story took away rather than added to my enjoyment of the novel. And all the women were vivid and kind and brave, while the men were not quite up to snuff. And all the Blacks were good and kind and strong, while the whites were not very likeable. And Vaught clearly put a lot of thought and care into the characters, but there was so much going on in so little space that they didn't get much chance to shine or grow.
It was short, but the language could become so poetic that I was surprised the book was intended for such a young audience. In one sense, I think Vaught did a disservice to the plot of this book by making it a middle grade novel. Her grandmothers were more nuanced and I would have liked to know them better, but we didn't get too much depth.
While Ruba was likeable and brave, I don't think she developed much as a character during the story rather, she started out strong, stayed brave throughout, and ended strong, too. But it just felt a little too young for me, and the points the author wanted to make about magic and religion and race were pushed very hard. And I think if I had been many years younger, I might have loved this book. The premise of this book really intrigued me - a feminist warrior who takes on nature and racism?! Absolutely amazing. But there are storms raging all around Ruba, who enters a world still dominated by the Ku Klux Klan and racial violence, and who must also save her loved ones from Hurricane Camille. But her grandmother died a hurricane and Ruba moved to the Mississippi Delta in 1969 to live with her other grandma, a fiercely religious woman who thinks that Ruba's training is dark magic. Ruba was raised by her grandmother to be a strong Amazon warrior, keeping the world safe from the evil spirits that often take the form of hurricanes. It's about Ruba, a 16-year-old Haitian orphan. I hope you'll forgive me for thinking she was, though, when you hear the plot summary of this book. I am embarrassed to admit that I read Susan Vaught's Stormwitch for the A More Diverse Universe blog tour and then, in preparing to write this review, realized that Susan Vaught is not, in fact, a person of color.
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