Not Everything I Wanted But Still Not Bad

 

TITLE: B*Witch

AUTHORS: Paige McKenzie and Nancy Ohlin

PUBLISHER: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

PUBLISHING DATE: July 7, 2020

FROM GOODREADS: 

A lone witch has powers. A coven has a multitude more. 

New girl and secret witch Iris just wants to get through her first day of school without a panic attack. The last thing she expects is to be taken in by a coven of three witches-soft-spoken Greta, thoughtful and musical Ridley, and fiery and spirited Binx. They may be the first witches Iris has met IRL, but their coven is not alone in their small northwestern town. 

The Triad is the other coven at their school. When the Triad's not using spells to punish their exes or break up happy couples for fun, they practice dark magic. The two covens have a rivalry stretching all the way back to junior high. 

When tragedy strikes and one of their own is murdered, the rival covens must band together to find out who is responsible before it's too late. Someone's anti-witch ideology has turned deadly . . . and one of them is next. 

With an inclusive cast of teen witches who leap off the page with style, attitude, and charm, B*Witch is a singable read perfect for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mean Girls alike.

MY THOUGHTS: In all honesty, I read this book a few months back.  However, I'm trying to catch up so I hope I can do some sort of review.

So basically you have the new girl in school, Iris, who eventually meets up with some other girls at school who are part of a Coven.  Iris is starting to realize she possesses some powers she doesn't quite understand so when she is befriended by a secret Coven, she desperately wants to fit in.  Add in a murder mystery, a second and warring Coven and the fact that witchcraft is punishable by death, and you have the makings of a high school hot mess.

I did really appreciate the diversity in B*Witch and felt that the authors did a good job of addressing a variety of teen issues and growing pains.  The reader is introduced to different ethnic groups, all inclusive body sizes,  and LGBTQIA+ individuals.  Yet I have to admit sometimes it felt as if the authors might have been trying to "check" too many boxes.  That being said, I did find myself cheering on some particular characters and at the end of the day, really did want to figure out the main mystery.

I liked the rival Coven interaction and how they needed to band together in the end to achieve some shared goals. However, I did not really enjoy the cliffhanger at the end.  I actually thought it was a stand-alone novel and if there really had to be a cliffhanger, why did it need to be one that basically wiped out the last 1/3 of the book.  

So overall, B*Witch was an entertaining read and I don't regret the afternoon I spent reading it.  I'll probably even pick up the sequel because I need to see how the authors write their way out of that ending.

RATING: 3 PAWS