Born Wicked - Jessica Spotswood

So today we're here to cover a book I loaned from work last week. I've never heard of the author or the series, and I honestly didn't even bother reading the jacket before I took it home. Sometimes this 'blind run' really works for me, and other times it completely backfires (I'm looking at you, Above).

This is historical (though alternate-universe historical) fiction about witches. The novel revolves around three sisters, the Cahills, whose mother has passed away, leaving the oldest daughter in charge of keeping her sisters safe. Having been raised without the presence of an older motherly figure in their lives, they are not as ladylike and refined as society would like. In this time period this would already be a problem, but the Cahills have it worse: in their world, society lives in fear of witches, who are known to be evil creatures who will trick you and can even turn your own mind against you. This fear is instilled by the Brotherhood, a group of men who essentially run the show. Their female counterparts are the Sisters, a group of secretive unmarried women who are always searching for new young women to recruit. If one is found to be a witch, they are sent away to institutions from which they will never return. While everyone in this world lives in fear, the Cahills have more to lose than most - all three of the sisters are witches, as was their mother.

As usual, we'll begin with the characters. Cate, the main character, was well written in my opinion. Her motives were always clear, though her actions did not always reflect that. As an older sister myself, I can understand being protective of younger siblings. In fact, whenever Cate even began to think of her own life and happiness she would dismiss it because it wouldn't benefit her sisters in anyway. Sure, she was controlling of them, and sure, she overreacted about some things that were way less of a big deal than she made them to be. But hey, she's thinking of her family here. And I'm totally cool with that. Something to mention is that there was a bit of a love triangle happening here, though it was slightly less in-your-face than it has been in other books. For one of the first times ever, I wasn't really rooting for one character or another, either. Both boys had their merits and shortcomings and would be equally good for our main character.

Now, something I have to complain about a little. This paragraph will contain MINOR SPOILERS so if you really don't want to know anything about this book before reading it, please continue on to the next spoiler free paragraph and pretend you never saw this. Go on. Are you still reading? Do you WANT to be still reading? Cool. Anyways, so something I really have to mention is this whole "mind magic is so rare, but everyone I know seems to have it!" thing. Even the characters themselves comment on how many people seem to be able to do this supposedly rare form of magic. I won't do a count of how many people can do it, as I don't want to give away too many spoilers here, but it's more than a few. Maybe they'll address this in the next book, but it just seemed strange to spend so much time talking about how nobody can ever do this kind of magic (though the Brothers seem to think that it's everywhere, but that's mostly to scare people) and then it starts popping up in all these characters like it's just some garden-variety power. Again, maybe this was intentional, but it definitely bugged me.

Much of this book felt like setup for the next novels, which made it slow at times, but I think that in the end it works to this book's advantage. You don't see too much of the magic that the characters can do, and we're not given all the facts right off the bat. It was a refreshing departure from many of the books who jump into the action right away and rush the endings. While this might not work for every reader, I think that this book (which until the last third can almost be seen as a prologue to the actual story) does a great job of setting the scene and introducing the world and the concepts.

If you're into romance and good storytelling and magic, this book is for you. If you're looking for action and excitement you'd probably be better off looking elsewhere, but I urge you to give this book a chance. I look forward to reading Ms. Spotswood's other books.

SCORE: 7.4/10
IF YOU LIKE: Grave Mercy (Robin LaFevers), Masque Of The Red Death (Bethany Griffin)

Betwixt - Tara Bray Smith

It's pretty much a given for me that if a book is about teens and something paranormal, I'll read it, and probably love it. Bonus points to the book if it's already on sale, as this one was. This book was very intriguing even just from the dust jacket: one character seems to have a dark secret, one can make paintings come to life (what even??) and the third can see halos of light around those who will be dying soon. Immediately I started to speculate on what the plot would be about... Casters? Psychics? Something entirely new?

Well, I was partially right. This book is about fey, but the idea of what you know about fairies has been taken and twisted so much that it can hardly be called fey anymore. The book begins very promising, and the characters are introduced in a way that makes the reader want to continue discovering more about them. While some of the characters do posess powers, none of them know how to use them or why they even have them in the first place. The characters begin talking about a summer rave in the woods fairly early on in the book, and anyone can see that this is where their fates will start to be revealed.

And this is where the book began to lose me. For the first two hundred or so pages, we are given tiny teases of what lies ahead, but not much more. In fact, the first third of the book mostly revolves around the two main girls in the book planning throwing a party. This party serves as an introduction for other characters who will become more important later, but feels like a completely different book entirely. There are not many revelations made about the characters in this first part, and it feels somewhat like filler.

About 200 pages or so in, we finally make it to the secret rave in the woods. At almost 300 pages in, the main teenagers have finally left the party. Do you see where I'm going with this? The book definitely had its moments, but it seemed to drag on and on with not much direction until the very end. The climax definitely had me turning the pages to see what would happen next, but led to a very disappointing ending. Will there be a sequel? I'm not sure, and I'm not sure the author knows either. The ending feels like the ending of the first season of a television show: the writers want to make sure that all loose ends and major plot points are tied up, so that it has closure if the show is cancelled, but leave enough questions and "what ifs" so that a second season can be made if need be.

The book was confusing, and the plot could have been a lot better. Many portions of the book were very promising, and the powers that the teens had were for the most part very unique. However, the book dragged on, and felt more like a chore to read than I would have liked. Normally a book with a plot like this and of a similar length would take me about a day to read; this book took me over a week.

One last thing I'd like to mention: what's with the character names? Morgan D'Amici is normal, but the other two characters leave something to be desired. Nix Saint-Michael sounded like it was trying too hard to have a 'cool' name... I didn't like how the author shortened "Nick" to "Nix" for no reason. The one that bugged me the most, though, would have to be Ondine Mason. Ondine is a Latin name, I know, but it felt made-up to me. Who would name their daughter Ondine? There are much prettier names out there if you want to go for a mythological name that has some historical meaning to it. Really though, a parent is not going to name their daughter "Ondine" and their son Max. You either name your kids weird things, or you don't. Not to mention - the characters in the book were constantly commenting on how weird the names "Nix" and "Moth" (short for the character's last name, Motherwell) were. REALLY? Those are weird, but ONDINE isn't?

Anyways, /end rant. The book wasn't great, but it was somewhat readable if you really like the teen paranormal genre. Not recommended to the average reader, but if you're of the type who must read every book of the genre like I am, go for it. Just don't expect great things. If you go into it with lower expectations than I did, who knows... you might like it!

SCORE: 4.5/10
IF YOU LIKE: Wicked Lovely (Melissa Marr), Tithe (Holly Black)