Review: Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough

Once a Witch

Author: Carolyn MacCullough

Publisher: Clarion Books

Series: Witch #1

Pages: 292

Genre: Paranormal

Release Date: September 14, 2009

How Received:  Library 

Summary: Tamsin Greene comes from a long line of witches, and she was supposed to be one of the most Talented among them. But Tamsin’s magic never showed up. Now seventeen, Tamsin attends boarding school in Manhattan, far from her family. But when a handsome young professor mistakes her for her very Talented sister, Tamsin agreed to find a lost family heirloom for him. The search—and the stranger—will prove to be more sinister than they first appeared, ultimately sending Tamsin on a treasure hunt through time that will unlock the secret of her true identity, unearth the sins of her family, and unleash a power so vengeful that it could destroy them all.

 My Thoughts:

Once a Witch involves a classic story where the main character, Tamsin, just doesn’t fit in – with her family or with the world. She turns to the real world for any semblance of normalcy, because the truth is this: Tamsin’s a witch. I love that the main character is the odd one out, the one who is a part of something special but completely cut off from it at the same time. She belongs, but she doesn’t belong.

The witch lore in this story was absolutely riveting. I love anything that deals with witches, but these witches were different. Instead of holding control over all magic, a witch is limited to their specific Talent. Their powers reminded me of geass’ in the anime Code Geass. Every time you use your Talent, its power diminishes bit by bit. Not only do they have special power, but they have limits on their power.

Every little thing that occurred in this novel was brought up later because everything had its own significance. It’s one of those books that you read, find out what happens, then re-read again and see how what happened fits into the bigger picture. Carolyn essentially slips us clues here and there, but I never pieced two and two together.

I loved Tamsin as the main character. She was bitter at not having a Talent, but she never took it out on those who did have Talents. She self-exiled herself to her room and to her own misery half the time, but she never gave up. What she did do was try her best not to let it bring her down, and that’s what brought her to her “normal” boarding school in New York. She wanted to impress her family and fit in so badly that she accepted a seemingly impossible task that does more damage, rather than help, to her family. Gabriel, the “main love interest”, was... charming. How else can I describe him? He’s witty, he’s a musician, and he was very blunt for a teenage boy. He’s gentlemanly, of course, but he thinks about sex just as much as the next kid, and that added to his realism.

Their romance was a little under-developed for my tastes. It was more like the romance took a backseat to the plot. Sure, Tamsin and Gabriel have history, but it’s a history we can’t see and they don’t really do much re-connecting. It mostly just felt like Tamsin thought Gabriel grew up hot, they have a few scenes together, and the next thing we know they’re together. Hopefully in the sequel there’s more romantic development (their first date better be included!).

Cover Musings: I love the color scheme – the brown, purple, and teal are perfect — and that girls’ hair! But I’m nitpicky and hated her fingernails. If I cover her hand up, this would be an awesome, intriguing cover. <3

Memorable Quotes:

I study his face closely, but he looks calm, relaxed, as if this is the most natural occasion, and with a sudden jolt I realize that for him it is. He’s truly home now, in a way that I’ll never be. I rest my eyes on a lone dandelion head that’s been crushed in the grass next to my left foot. (pg. 46)

“Ah,” my grandmother says. It’s one of her favorite words. Depending on the inflection, it means a whole bunch of different things. It could mean I was wondering when you would get around to telling me this. Or you continue to amuse me with your oh-so-predictable troubles. Or I see the solution to your problem even if you cannot. (pg. 113)

I think all those words line the walls of his brain and smother any desire to speak with us lesser mortals. Or maybe we smothered that out of him long ago when we refused to listen to his vast stores of knowledge for more than two seconds before running off or stuffing him headfirst into one of the barrels outside the barn that collected rainwater. In my defense I never did that. I just served as a lookout whenever anyone else did. (pg. 153)

I sigh. “I give up.”
Gabriel, wearing one of Uncle Chester’s charcoal suits, advances toward me. “You give up? You give up your foolish resistance to my undeniable charms? I knew you’d cave eventually. They always do.” (pg. 232)

Overall Thoughts/Final Comments: Once a Witch is a very enchanting tale that combines romance and witchlore perfectly. It has elements of betrayal, mistrust, helplessness, time-travel, magic.. . You name it! The main character lived up to her mistakes and “followed through” with what she had started instead of dropping out and letting someone else clean up her mess.

While I did love this book, I wasn’t as fan-girly about it and it didn’t hook me right away. I’d like to think that it’s because the main love interests namesake (Gabriel) just broke my poor little hopeful heart in real life while I was reading, but I tried not to be too biased on how that affected my opinion of the book.I WAS, however, fan-girly about the trailer! Go check it out if you haven't!

Rating: 4/5

Review: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures

Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Publisher: Little, Brown

Series: Caster Chronicles #1

Pages: 563

Genre: Paranormal

Release Date: December 1, 2009

How Received: Library

Summary: Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps, and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

My Thoughts:

Because of the hype surrounding the release of Beautiful Darkness (and because it was finally in my library, sitting all nice on a shelf waiting for me to pick it up), I picked up a copy of Beautiful Creatures. As I’m sure most of you know, I don’t read summaries before I tackle books – I like being in the dark.

Being in the dark on the whole plot, I was terrified throughout the entire novel. I spook easily (and it doesn’t help that while I was reading at 2AM, my house started creaking and making weird sounds) so the whole mystery about Lena and the danger pursuing her paralyzed me with fear. But I felt cheated at the end – my fear had no reason or base. We basically read through 500 pages of speculation and what-ifs and Lena’s upcoming birthday, just to get a resolution that barely lasts 40 pages. I feared the antagonist for that long to only get 40 pages of... talking? Saraphine didn’t even seem like a threat. I’m supposed to assume the Darkest Caster that ever lived will go down as the way she did? I felt cheated.

While I read this book, I was engaged in the plot but I was never excited about it. I felt indifferent, detached, even though I was still caught up in Gatlin and the Caster world. I was more interested in Casters than I was in Ethan’s and Lena’s relationship or Ethan’s lengthy internal monologues.

This book was huge. I felt like a lot of it could have been cut, as a lot of the events weren’t really necessary to the main plot or character/romantic development. When I see a huge book, I expect something like Harry Potter – a good plot that balances between a fast and slow pacing. This book didn’t balance pacing – it was just slow all around. Again, if I want to read 563 pages of a book, I expect most of it to be worth my time, and I didn’t feel that with this book. Don’t get me wrong. The back-stories and history revolving Gatlin was great; the redundancy in the events and in the conversations was not.

I had conflicts with Ethan’s personality. While I loved the whole idea that everything about Gatlin bored him because he had lived there his whole life (because I can empathize), he was so feminine! Kami and Margaret wrote him like a girl trapped in a boy’s body. When I think of male narrator written by female writer, I think of (again) Harry Potter. At least in HP it was done well and believable. But I couldn’t believe that Ethan would be able to tell the differences between smell, or that he’d care enough about girls’ clothing or their prom dresses, or that he’d give vibrant details about a town he supposedly despises being in. He’s a teenage boy – they absolutely do not think those things! Overall, he was gentlemanly and almost chivalrous at times, but it was too hard to believe he was so good that he was adverse to normal teenage boy behavior.

Lena... ugh. That sums up what I thought of her very well. One time of her whining and moping around about her upcoming birthday, okay sure, I understand why she’s nervous. Second time, third time, fourth... FIFTEENTH. I get that she’s terrified of becoming dark, but that fact is reiterated almost every page. It gets repetitive and annoying after a while. Every time she came up (and it happened a lot since Ethan was so obsessed with her), I had to groan and prepare for a dull read about another whiny rant.

Yet despite all of these things, I couldn’t help but love the book. Maybe it was the relationship – it actually developed and the two weren’t all over each other the instant they saw each other – or maybe even the mystery or intrigue that pulled me in, or maybe that I’m just a sucker for dangerous romances. Either way, I loved the history behind Gatlin and enjoyed seeing how elements of the Caster World could be interweaved into this small little southern town. Even Ethan charmed me at times (but only because I’m a sucker for the good-boy types, even unbelievable ones). There was a substantial amount of wit and humor, and a plethora of quirky characters who were hard to not love. The plot, which involved witches (casters), was unique and I found myself wanting to learn more about the Caster world than we were exposed to.

Lastly, some random stuff. I had some mad BOO RADLEY LOVE going on! And was happy when I saw Kami and Margaret use “fixin’” – I had only recently learned that it meant “getting ready to do so and do” because of my recent trip to Texas, so I got all excited when I knew what it meant. I felt in the know.

Cover Musings: The font is insanely pretty. I love the dark background, as well, because I think it sets up the mood nicely – dark, ominous. I couldn’t help but picture those trees in Amma’s front yard during the midnight scene with Macon!

Memorable Quotes:

There were only two kinds of people in our town. “The stupid and the stuck,” my father had affectionately classified our neighbors. “The ones who are bound to stay or too dumb to go. Everyone else finds a way out.” (pg. 1)

The girl was falling. I was falling. I had to hold on, but I couldn’t. If I let go, something terrible would happen to her. But that’s the thing. I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t lose her. It was like I was in love with her, even though I didn’t know her. Kind of like love before first sight. (pg. 5)

“I was gonna ask Amma, but when I showed her the locket her eyes almost fell out of her head. Like it was triple hexed, soaked in a bucket of voodoo, and wrapped in a curse for good measure.” (pg. 113) 

I was almost relieved it was Saturday. There was something comforting about spending the day with women whose only magical powers were forgetting their own names. (pg. 332)

I could hear the sound but I could not understand the words
and then I realized the sound was me, breaking
in one moment I was feeling everything and I was feeling nothing
I was shattered, I was saved, I lost everything, I was given
everything else
something in me died, something in me was born, I only knew
the girl was gone
whoever I was now, I would never be her again this is the way
the world ends not with a bang but a whimper. (559)

Overall Thoughts/Final Comments: While not the best paranormal romance I’ve read and wasn’t as great as the hype I’ve heard about it, I generally enjoyed the book. The history of the south, Gatlin, and the Caster world were admittedly my favorite parts of the book. The pacing was sluggishly slow most of the time, with tons of lengthy internal monologues, and a lot of the events could have been cut. But overall, it was an okay book – I liked it enough to want to continue to Beautiful Darkness (which I’m hoping has more of the Caster world)!

Rating: 4/5

Review: All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

All Just Glass

Author: Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Publisher: Delacorte Books

Series: N/A

Pages: 256

Genre: Paranormal

Release Date: January 11, 2011

How Received: Arc Tour

Summary: Sarah Vida has given up everything for love. From a legendary family of vampire-hunting witches, Sarah was raised to never trust a vampire, to never let her guard down, and to avoid all tricky attachments of the heart. But now Sarah IS a vampire—changed by the boy she thought she loved. Her family has forsaken her, and Sarah herself is disgusted by her appetite for blood.

Aida Vida is Sarah’s older sister, the good, reliable sibling who always does her family proud. But when Aida’s mother insists that Sarah be found and killed, Aida is given the one assignment that she may not be able to carry out.

My Thoughts:

I didn’t like this book. Plain and simple. I normally enjoyed Amelia’s previous works, but this novel was a huge step down to other books she’s written.

First off, she assaulted us with tons of names that a new reader isn’t likely to remember. It’s been a while since I’ve read her Den of Shadows series; I’m not likely to remember five different families and the sub-divisions of those families. She also threw terms at us that a new reader might not have known (like bloodbond, etc). Nowhere on the book is it mentioned that this is a sort of... “sequel” or companion book to Shattered Mirror, so how is someone who has never read Amelia’s work before supposed to know everything upon first read? There are a lot of terms and ideas that are just implied and not explicitly stated.

I have no idea why the content in the book was compiled into only 24 hours. If it was originally meant that way, then there were a lot of inconsistencies. I’m almost convinced that Amelia wrote the book to cover a couple of weeks and at the end, changed it to 24 hours (and did a messy job of it). The times below the chapter titles were inconsistent and I just didn’t believe such intense scenes (involving driving across a city) occurred in 14 minutes. The 24 hour time limit was just so not believable. Some of the events in the book could have easily lasted days, like battle recovery. I don’t believe someone can attain numerous life-threatening wounds and recover in an hour, even for witches or vampires. And lastly, the pacing seemed way too slow for a twenty four hour novel. When I think 24 hours, I think fast paced. The pacing felt like it was covering weeks and not one day.

Several back stories were given in fragments and weren’t even explained fully. Even with a sequel, you want to include information so that your reader doesn’t feel at a loss. I still don’t know half of the back stories to half of the characters, and that left several holes in the plot. Even the plot twists weren’t explained fully – it was just so messy that I couldn’t even be all too shocked at the plot twists. And I never knew there was such a thing as too many plot twists until I read this book. I swear, every single page had a plot twist (okay, so that’s a little exaggeration, but close enough to the truth). There came a point where I wasn’t even shocked at some new revelation that made no sense anyway. The last four or five twists didn’t even faze me.

The alternating POVs made no sense to me. Sure, I understand the two main characters, Aida and Sarah, having their own POVs. But characters we rarely see? I saw absolutely no point whatsoever to Zachary’s two or three POVs. Dominique had ONE POV section, and it was at the end. Honestly, was that necessary? We could have easily had that scene from either of her daughters and I’m sure some other character would have described why she was acting so strange anyway. The character development wasn’t that great, either. There were way too many characters to get connected or see how one grows. It was pretty much, “Oh, I feel this way at the start of the book, but now I feel this way at the end of the book because I spent time during 24 hours reevaluating my opinions that were drilled into me since I was a baby, which also obviously happened off-screen because it’s mentioned nowhere in the book.” The relationships were also very weak. I’m not sure I’d even call them relationships – it seemed to me like everyone in the story was a stranger with each other, even the twins and Sarah.

The one thing I did like, however, was the reiteration that being perfect isn’t everything and that it’s okay to have faults. But the way it was executed was distasteful. To be honest, I slogged through this book. I previously loved a few of Amelia’s work, as her writing is lovely, but this book was just not up to par with anything she’s ever written before.

Cover Musings: I don’t like it so much. Crows, great for symbolism. The sword between them. But it just doesn’t pop out at me. I guess it sets a somber mood, though... so that’s a plus, right?

Memorable Quotes:

She didn’t know what might have happened between them if she hadn’t been a Vida, and if his brother hadn’t reacted violently to what he saw as a threat to Kristopher. As it was, they had never even managed a successful first date before their romance had gone the way of Romeo and Juliet’s—except that Romeo and Juliet didn’t wake up the next day, leave the crypt and say, “Now what?” (pg. 34-5)

Unfortunately, once she and Dominique were gone, he was alone with the Marinitch telepath, the human, and the tied up bloodbond.

“Anyone up for a round of go fish?” Jay asked after looking around the room. (pg. 52)

There was no law against a Vida having a relationship. It had in fact been hinted to him, strongly and frequently, that he was twenty-six years old and should get around to choosing a partner so he could pass on the Vida genes, like some kind of prize bull. (pg. 139)

Jay collapsed dramatically to the couch. “I knew your line was weird, but I never even imagined how profoundly messed up you all are. It’s no wonder Sarah had a fling with a serial killer, or that Zachary unwinds with the undead. You’re all so obsessed with being perfect, you end up hating yourselves.” (pg. 187)

Overall Thoughts/Final Comments: If you’ve never read Amelia Atwater Rhodes before, do me a favor and don’t start with All Just Glass. I really wanted to like this book – in fact, I signed up for the arc tour because I thought it’d be great. It fell short on all levels – plot twists, character development, relationships, consistency, pacing, plot, and wasn’t addicting at all. I had to force myself to finish for the tour. It’s a shame, because I loved some of Amelia’s other novels.

Rating: 1/5

**I received this ARC from Good Golly Miss Holly’s ARC tours! (Thank you Holly and Looksie!)