In grade eight, I didn't care how historically accurate or believable this story was. I adored Mary, the heroine who tries to keep her head down in a strict Puritanical society and only gets punished for it. This story pulled me right into her heart and her journey, and at fourteen, Mary was easily a source of strength.

I read this book years ago, in high school.

I really enjoyed it! It's about a girl called Mary whose grandmother is condemned to death for witchcraft. I remember (vaguely) enjoying the voice of the protagonist but also the pace of the book. It was quite chunky for me when I read it at the time but there was just something about Mary that grabbed me.

I also remember the satisfying feeling when I got to the ending, too.

Maybe I'll read it again one day.

... once I get through all the other books on my TBR. Haha. Hahaha. Hahahaha.

One of the best books I've read to date despite its pitfalls. It really reads like a diary up until the end. The author kind of lost me with the whole diary thing at the end when Mary found time between running for her life to write in her diary about how she excaped with excrutiating detail. Not very realistic.

Due to the way this book was structured I had a hard time placing myself in the world. The book comprises of diary entries made by a 17th century girl about her journey from England to the colonies in N. America. On the first page of the diary she calls herself a witch. And that's about where the supernatural ends. There are a few signs (some divining) that occur but the rest is simply her day to day survival as an outsider.

The POV in this book was so distant I had little sympathy for the main character. I was told everything that happened after the fact (as is the case with all diaries) and so already knew that there was little to no danger. And all the action was told to us, rather than shown. Very little dialogue, very little action. Just telling.

I think if the author had used a different format, had made Mary alive for us rather than having us read her journals four centuries later it could have been a brilliant book.

1. One of the blurbs on the back cover says it's left up to the reader whether or not Mary is really a witch. Um, no, it's made pretty clear. She has visions. She's not the kind of witch her neighbors think she is, but she definitely has "powers."

2. I was fascinated by the girl on the cover, so I was pretty entertained that in the sequel excerpt, the character who had just "read" the book was pondering who she was also.

3. There is no mystery at all as to where this is going, at least not if you are familiar with any of these: a) American history, b) The Crucible, c) Witch of Blackbird Pond. Which is okay--it certainly heightens the forboding. The story is well told. But since I've both read Miller's masterful play and frequently read WOBP (despite the embarrassingly romance novel-esque cover my Scholastic book edition had) as a kid, it didn't really bring anything new to my world. I can see that for modern tweens, it might be what WOBP was for me, and I have no real quibble with those who rate it higher.