Wandering Witch

Bewitching by Alex Flinn

* Book will be released February 14, 2012
* ARC read via Around The World ARC Tours

3 out of 5 gnomes

I must admit that I have never read Beastly but I've read enough reviews/saw the preview for the movie to get the gist of what it's about.  Knowing that I was very interested in what Kendra the witches story would be about.  I am a huge fan of fractured fairy tales or the redoing of classic stories.  It's fun to have well known stories seen from a different perspective.  So in that regard I enjoyed the story.

The tone and snark of the main character is great and with the beginning part you find out her origin story.  This view on witches is an intriguing one especially the part about there not really being that many but that the ones there are just live a really long time and move around a lot. I just wish that there had been more from her direct point of view.  The parts with just Kendra are the best parts in the book.  When she's the omniscient narrator it's still good but the other characters kind of fall flat/feel like background characters.  Don't get me wrong, they are good characters, they just didn't really have a lot of depth to them.

I'm also not sure why the story was put together so piece meal.  There was enough material introduced in just this one book for potentially multiple stories.  It just got kind of jarring jumping between so many different stories because then there was really no one thread to hold on to until you see how Kendra is involved in each story.  What I'm trying to say is that I like the ideas and the stories themselves are good but if you're like me you'll always be waiting for Kendra to make an appearance. 

The story with the most chapters is kind of Cinderella-esque.  Emma and Lisette are stepsisters but of the long lost variety.  At first Emma wants to be friends with Lisette but then Lisette's true intentions start to shine through.  It's great how crafty Lisette is about getting her way and it takes Emma a long time to grow a backbone and stand up to her.  There's also a nice twist to the story about love and staying true to who you are.

I would love to read whatever comes next in this series because I liked Kendra as the narrator.  Overall these are some fun stories with a unique voice.  If you're a fan of fairy tales I would recommend you check out this book.