Book Review

Witch: Unleashed. Untamed. Unapologetic.

By Lisa Lister

A few months ago I received a book through one of the sites I do reviews for. At first, I was excited to read it and just from the title alone felt I’d be giving a glowingly positive review of said book. However, after trying to read the garbage contained within the pages, I packed it up and sent it back.

I LOVED the title and thought “Oh! This one is going to be a good read and will be able to offer great advice to anyone walking the crooked path. Boy, was I wrong! I got as far as finishing the third chapter and put it down. Yes, it IS that bad.

Let me begin by saying if you are a feminist of the man-hating kind then you may be interested in this book. It is not a good resource for someone who wants to learn about any specific witchcraft traditions or accurate historical practice. I wouldn’t even say it reflects current neo-pagans practice. This is a self-help book geared towards women who hate men. Period.

If you start your book out by saying the transgender community will feel excluded from your book but you don’t care because you do “women’s work” and then write a book which reads like a self-indulgent Facebook post about how witchy you are then at least you know you’re cishet privileged trash. At least you’re not ignorant of your own transphobia.

If your feminism isn’t all inclusive then your feminism is trash. This belongs in the garbage can. She isn’t even coherent- forget interesting, engaging, historically accurate, or inclusive.

The introduction where she talks about the type of woman this is for made me uncomfortable. Not all women bleed, not all women have wombs, not all women have vaginas. I’m 63 and have gone through menopause, I don’t bleed. And her repetitive use of the words pussy and vagina made me angry and irritated each time she tried to impress how much more powerful she was as a Witch simply because she still bleeds. Her “Woman’s Work” is an attempt to exclude anyone who does not bleed once a month, casting them as less than instead of holding them up as just as powerful as any other Witch.

Not only is any information she provides minimal, but it has also been written as if she needed to jam the information inside to justify to the title of the book. She gives no further information to explain or expound on her statements and she gives the reader no history to back up her statements.

I was exhausted trying to give her the benefit of the doubt by the time she came around to the suggestions for defeating the patriarchy, part of which essentially means treating your man if you have one like a sidekick. Lisa doesn’t speak for me and I don’t identify with her practice, which is fine, but I definitely don’t agree with her ham-fisted views of exclusionary feminism, which she continues to shove down your throat.

This author clearly doesn’t think transwomen or women who cannot give birth are real women. I honestly couldn’t get past the pussy-power witchcraft and the repetitive disdain for patriarchy and anyone without a pussy, trans women included.

I suppose this book would work for a woman who doesn’t know about patriarchy and feels immense shame about her female body. Other than that it is useless. It pretty much says if you are not in tune with your menstruation then you have succumbed to patriarchy which is just a load of bullshit. If you don’t have a uterus or a period you are also out of luck, and every page pretty much dripped with that sentiment. I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone other than those who think the term Witch is dirty and evil and needs to start from step one.

Pick up a history book next time Lisa Lister before offending true witches and lying to people again. This book of fiction has no historical fact except for some names involved. Lisa Lister is no witch, and doesn’t write about witchcraft – she writes about feminism and magic derived from her uterus. I’ll stick with the historical record, not her weird new-age religion.