Bewitching Review

Bewitching 
by Alex Flinn

From Goodreads:

Bewitching can be a beast. . . .

Once, I put a curse on a beastly and arrogant high school boy. That one turned out all right. Others didn’t.

I go to a new school now—one where no one knows that I should have graduated long ago. I’m not still here because I’m stupid; I just don’t age.

You see, I’m immortal. And I pretty much know everything after hundreds of years—except for when to take my powers and butt out.

I want to help, but things just go awry in ways I could never predict. Like when I tried to free some children from a gingerbread house and ended up being hanged. After I came back from the dead (immortal, remember?), I tried to play matchmaker for a French prince and ended up banished from France forever. And that little mermaid I found in the Titanic lifeboat? I don’t even want to think about it.

Now a girl named Emma needs me. I probably shouldn’t get involved, but her gorgeous stepsister is conniving to the core. I think I have just the thing to fix that girl—and it isn’t an enchanted pumpkin. Although you never know what will happen when I start . . . bewitching.

My Thoughts:  I just read the ARC of this book.  Yes, I know it's out in the stores already, but I was already signed up for the tour and with all the books dying a slow death on my own personal Mt. TBR, it seems unfair to go out and buy more and more books.  But if I'd known how much I was going to like this book, I would have made the purchase, and I still might because I like to own the books I like (or even vaguely like... I'm a book hoarder.  I don't know why THAT's not a show because from what I've seen of some of my fellow blogger's shelves and IMM's, I'm not the only one that's afflicted with bookhoarderitis).

I read Beastly by Alex Flinn and I remember enjoying it. I also remember reading it in one sitting late at night at the computer desk shortly after one of Dewey's Readathon, which had been when I had purchased the book for my Kindle.

As much as I liked Beastly, Bewitching is better.  I'm sad that I haven;t read more of Flinn's books, but honestly unless those solar flares seriously mess up the internet I doubt I'll get to all the books I want to read.  I'm hoping Jesus follows my Goodreads To Be Read list...

Bewitching is Kendra's story, the witch that cast the curse in Beastly, and tells of her origins.  Right off the bat readers get treated to an outbreak of the Plague, so of course I was hooked.  Sadly, other than her origins from poor villager to full fledged witch, we only get glimpses of Kendra.  I would have liked more, because she's a pretty interesting witch.  And while I realize that after hundreds of years it might seem weird that she's still hanging around high school, but I also kind of get it.  She looks like a teen, and who better to torment, er help, with her powers than teens?

The main story, which is more Emma's than Kendra's, is about the stepsister that Kendra befriends.  Emma is very easy to identify with, she's pretty but in a normal non-size zero way, she's insecure but caring, and she likes geeky boys. Her world is turned upside down when her step-father's daughter- beautiful, poor and tragic Lizette.  But this isn't Cinderella exactly, and soon it is Emma who suffering in the shadow's of her golden girl step-sister shine. 

What I like here is that Emma and Kendra become friends, real friends.  Honestly, I'd probably be friends with these two misfits too.  Kendra wants to help Emma, but as you see in her other tales, her magic doesn't always work out as planned.

The other fairy tales that get a new telling?  The Princess and the Pea and the Little Mermaid.  Here the Little Mermaid tale is a lot more faithful to the original story than Disney's pretty princess ending.  Sea foam, people, sea foam.

My only problem with the story is with Emma's step dad's past actions and Lizette's past, I would have liked a little more explanation.  But it's easily overlooked because it's a fun read.

Bewitching gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

the cover gets a Midnight Book Cover Rating:

The cover is pretty, but it wouldn't make me pick up the book if I didn't already know I wanted to read it.