Reviews
Rating: 3.5/5 Genre: YA Fantasy Recommended Age: 11+ Favorite Quote: "I mean, from what I do know about witchcraft -- doesn't it kind of mandate that practitioners use their powers for good instead of evil?" Jean "Jinx" Honeychurch hates her family's nickname for her. It only reminds her of the misfortune that follows her everywhere. Such luck led to a bit of an issue back home, so now she's living with her aunt and uncle in New York City. She thinks she can turn her luck and life around, but trouble follows her halfway across the country and it's causing issues between Jean and her beautiful, glamorous cousin Tory, who isn't happy Jean is around. Soon, Jean realizes it wasn't just her bad luck she was running from, it's something far more sinister and ancient. The only thing can save Jean now is the curse she was born under. Let's start by talking about how long I've had this book. Remember Borders? Remember when they closed? I bought this book from them during one such sale and it's sat on my bookcase ever since. I've only read it recently and I'm kicking myself for waiting this long. This book was fantastic! Meg Cabot writes beautifully and brings every character to life. She always writes very enjoyable books and they're easy to read, which is important because a lot of her books are aimed at younger children and newly young adults. This book wasn't her best work by far, but it was of medium level quality and it had a good message built into it: magic lies within you if only you can grasp it. While I enjoyed the book in general, I did have some quips about it. I thought the pacing was very rushed. It's a children's book, but Harry Potter beats this book in length and most children have the attention span to read it. I felt the author needed to slow the story down a tad. I also thought the plot development was off. I could see the ending coming from a mile away and that made the book too predictable. The author also didn't entice me with Zach. All the other characters were generally well developed, but Zach was a little off in my opinion. I just couldn't like him much. I did like how he cinema sinned and pointed out how unreliable the narrator could be since the book is written in first person POV, but he stole my job from me and that's not right! Lol jkjk. Anyways, I think this would be a good book for an emerging YA Fantasy lover and a great transitional book for those breaking out of children's books to YA. It's not the best transitional book *coughHarryPottercough* but it's a good one to start with.
