Cécile has been through much since we were first introduced to her in Stolen Songbird. My first complaint with her character was the she turned out to be the typical spunky agent and this still has not changed. I am well aware that this book YA and therefore a younger protagonist might make mistakes that a more mature one might not but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some character growth, of which Cécile had absolutely none. Cécile constantly vacillated between wallowing in self pity due to the consequences of her actions and in turn blaming others and shirking responsibility altogether. What was perhaps must irritating about Cécile was her absolute refusal to listen to others. The trolls on her side of the war were experienced and trained and time after time, she ignored their advice to do things her own way which inevitably further complicated whatever situation she was trying to extricate herself from.
The thing that bothered me most about Cécile as a spunky agent is that her actions didn't even make sense. Who exactly decides to sneak into the enemies lair in the middle of the night without bothering to inform friends and family of the risk they are taking? Cécile that's who. She knew damn well that cooler heads would have forced her to think through her actions and so she ran off instead with a half formed idea. When called upon her action, Cécile didn't even seem to want to acknowledge that her friends and family were terrified that she had died. She's almost bitter about having to take her lumps for their rightful anger.
Warrior Witch is filled with action which for me is a bit of a turn off. I don't enjoy reading battle scene after battle scene and the writing in these portions of the book was far from descriptive enough for me to be drawn in. Instead, it felt like the action was drawing out the inevitable conclusion of the story. There just wasn't enough meta holding Warrior Witch together for me, even with the introduction of the fae and an explanation as to how they become trolls and trapped on earth. The introduction of the fae should have added something special to this story and yet, I felt at least the Winter Queen was far too easily defeated to be of much interest. If that were not enough, solving the mystery of how the Trolls became trapped on earth on the first place occurred in what felt like a blink of the eye. How is it that the Trolls and witches have been trying for centuries to deal with the iron poisoning which trapped the Trolls on earth and Cécile was able to put together a little spell in a New York minute? I understand that Cécile is the super special chosen one but watching her vacillate between an utter wreck and then completely competent threw off the flow of the story.
