The Change by Kirsten Miller is vengeful, mystical, and empowering. This is a journey about women pushing through male-caused hardships and the catalyst of the change. For the three protagonists in The Change, the change involves magic and I appreciated this novel greatly. The story focuses on a triple homicide that envelopes you in a seedy world of corruption, money, and power with characters you honestly hope get what they deserve. Simultaneously, it embodies the power of change, and what being a woman can mean within society but more importantly how each woman views themselves within those parameters.

The Change has an intricate plot and the emphasis on the power change and advocating for a more equal world is vindicating. This is an engaging book you will enjoy as not only does the power of magic and change vitalise you, it's also a fantastic murder mystery absolutely worth an hour of your time.

The Change has an audio runtime of around 15 hours and despite the length, it is a read I sped through and one you will too. Why? Because the plot is good and what makes it good is the emphasis on the power of women, the transitions between narrators, and the deceit.

The characters become fleshed out the longer you read; at the beginning you don't know what ignited the fire in a character and the slow revealing of their past and why this specific power speaks to them heightens the journey. There are two plots in the story: self actualisation of the three protagonists and the mystery of a triple homicide. Two vastly different concepts that blend well together creating a captivating, with just a few infuriating moments, read.

I think this is intentional but the characters in The Change are black and white, there is no moral greyness in the story and I personally think it works and will be something you too will appreciate. Yes, the characters grow and develop throughout (don't worry there is plenty of change) but they are always on a clear path of either truly good or truly evil. Okay, I am simplifying it a little - there are grey moments but it is primarily good versus bad and it works.

The witchy powers the three protagonist's have further heighten this moral division and out of the three, Harriet is superb. Harriet is polarising, you will either like her abrasiveness or loathe it, and I do think think whatever category you fall into will skew your reaction a touch to this read but regardless, it will still be a worthy one. I personally loved Harriet. I think this is mainly because I aspire to be Harriet. She is a powerful woman who can control plants - I want that power.

Now I don't want any of the messy parts of her life, just the magical competence but like all the protagonists, it is the messy parts that emphasise their change and make them well-rounded characters. Although there may be times you find the lack of moral greyness and moments of shallow thinking by the characters to be overshadowing the story, there are not enough of these moments to heavily impact the story and in all, these characters are worth reading.

The Change has a predictable but vindicating ending. You will experience emotional triumph reading and the premise of the novel is perfectly encapsulated by the ending. The Change is about power and vindication and this is a read absolutely worth your time.

This was a polarising read which I couldn't keep my hands off - well, my ears off. January LaVoy narrated the audiobook and she was phenomenal; she brought the story to life with her subtle shifts in tone and delivery. Having a bad narrator can easily ruin a read and she knocked it out of the park, easily one of the best narrator's I've encountered. Despite the length of the audiobook, I finished it in record time because I could not stop listening, the narrator and plot had its hooks in me.

It is strange too, that it did have hooks in me because a lot of the story angered me - I think mainly because of my hatred for the struggles of women, which were prominently discussed and displayed throughout the story. This novel wasn't about the greyness of society, it was about the bad and good. It worked because it is the bad, the truly vile and more often than not rich men (sometimes women) that get away with things. The Change emphasised a shift in three women who refused to bend to the broken demands of society and it was hard to read because creating that shift and the cause for that shift is reality and I think is why the book was so polarising but still fantastic for me.

I enjoyed how the main protagonist, Harriet, did not back down and I wish I was her. I don't want her strength, I have strength - I want her ability to manipulate plants. Could you imagine Jimson weed destroying the garden of someone that wronged you? It's not ethical but it would be pretty great revenge. That is why I like Harriet the most because she gave in to nature and I do believe nature is the core of who we are along with empathy, power, and the willingness to change. Having these three different protagonists helped because they emphasised different parts of being human that make you a human, irrespective of gender. The portrayal of the women in The Change was powerful and I think a good representation for women of what it means to take control of yourself within a society that has long denied women control.

There were moments I found strange in the story. I don't know how long they knew each other but it must have been the bonding of finding a dead body but for them to immediately say best friend, auntie - intimate words for people you're still getting to know kind of threw me off. I feel like more time needed to pass to warrant those affectionate names. It is a very minor thing but it did tick me off a little and I want to know if anyone else was frustrated by it.

Throughout the novel, the good of women and the badness of men was heavily focused on, and all I could think throughout was there are good men and bad women too. I think it worked well having a good versus bad nature but I think a good man and bad woman would have benefited the story to show that not all evil comes from one gender and that there is both good and bad in all genders. And then it happened, there was an evil women in the form of Claud and my wish was granted.

Upon her arrival, I felt something was off; the longer she appeared and integrated herself into the lives of these three women and especially when Rocka (not confident that is the name anymore - please correct me if I'm wrong) spotted them from his porch, his first question was "what are you doing here," in reference to Claud. That to me indicated a deeper relationship and his shock at her being there felt off. And I was right! I knew she was no good, a woman bad to the bone, just like her male partner. I am happy with that turn of events and this novel showed that anyone can be bad and regardless of who you are, you have the power to change yourself and the world.

Overall, this novel was to the extremes. It took the worst possible situation and made it a reality, took the worst possible people and put them in the novel, took the pain of women and made it uncomfortably real and then readable. The unravelling of the plot is fantastic and there is power in this book, it is a great read. I highly enjoyed and appreciated The Change, it was the change I was searching for.