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A review by aliviasbookshelf
The Babysitters Coven by Kate M. Williams
1.0
"The normies don't know about the sitterhood."
I wonder if I would've enjoyed this book more when I bought it. I think this sat on my shelf for two years before I finally decided to read it, and oh boy was I disappointed.
As someone who grew up on the babysitters club and adores witches, I was so excited, but this book overall felt like a random product and a semi-decent fanfic had a child.
The magic system was lazy, questionable, and kind of just leeched off of buffy the vampire slayer in what they attempted to have as a cute play off or tribute, but really was just stealing. I kind of like the idea of spells refreshing themselves over time to be more accessible, but why would any spell need a vape cartridge? Why, if all their magic was curated for defence, do they have a cheese manipulation spell. And the 'kinesis' thing just made it weirder.
The writing was boring, and downright cringey. "I actually LOL'd was a sentence that genuinely left our teenage portages mouth. And that was tame. Every single one of these characters was bland, but the protagonist was probably the worst? That being said, the names Cassandra heaven and Emmy pearl should've warned me from the beginning.
I stand by the statement that authors should never describe outfits unless they've seen it on a human being. I had hope for the clothes because the author worked for magazines but oh my gosh? at least sixteen or so outfits in this book and each one was a crime in its own way. And you can really tell the author worked for magazines because the characters named their fits in the weirdest ways. It was rough.
Beyond that, this book was rough for diversity, using it's POC characters for side plots and then discarding them, creating odd and inconsiderate representations of mental illness, and mocking and making a joke of a character with genuine grief.
my final grief with it is the way they treated my favourite movie, Halloween. I was excited when a babysitter dressed as Laurie Strode for halloween because that is pretty clever. But not once in this story did they establish the concept of alternate universes where fiction became real. SO TELL ME how the actual hell did Laurie Strode herself show up to help? Let me be perfectly clear. At the end, LAURIE STRODE shows up. Not Jamie Lee Curtis. Laurie, and then she winks and leaves. It was so weird.
you know a book is bad when all your tabs are for certain niche negative things. Green was bad outfits, Yellow was questionable dialogue, etc. My friends ended up quoting it later in the day just based off what I had told them. I don't DNF, but I should have.
I wonder if I would've enjoyed this book more when I bought it. I think this sat on my shelf for two years before I finally decided to read it, and oh boy was I disappointed.
As someone who grew up on the babysitters club and adores witches, I was so excited, but this book overall felt like a random product and a semi-decent fanfic had a child.
The magic system was lazy, questionable, and kind of just leeched off of buffy the vampire slayer in what they attempted to have as a cute play off or tribute, but really was just stealing. I kind of like the idea of spells refreshing themselves over time to be more accessible, but why would any spell need a vape cartridge? Why, if all their magic was curated for defence, do they have a cheese manipulation spell. And the 'kinesis' thing just made it weirder.
The writing was boring, and downright cringey. "I actually LOL'd was a sentence that genuinely left our teenage portages mouth. And that was tame. Every single one of these characters was bland, but the protagonist was probably the worst? That being said, the names Cassandra heaven and Emmy pearl should've warned me from the beginning.
I stand by the statement that authors should never describe outfits unless they've seen it on a human being. I had hope for the clothes because the author worked for magazines but oh my gosh? at least sixteen or so outfits in this book and each one was a crime in its own way. And you can really tell the author worked for magazines because the characters named their fits in the weirdest ways. It was rough.
Beyond that, this book was rough for diversity, using it's POC characters for side plots and then discarding them, creating odd and inconsiderate representations of mental illness, and mocking and making a joke of a character with genuine grief.
my final grief with it is the way they treated my favourite movie, Halloween. I was excited when a babysitter dressed as Laurie Strode for halloween because that is pretty clever. But not once in this story did they establish the concept of alternate universes where fiction became real. SO TELL ME how the actual hell did Laurie Strode herself show up to help? Let me be perfectly clear. At the end, LAURIE STRODE shows up. Not Jamie Lee Curtis. Laurie, and then she winks and leaves. It was so weird.
you know a book is bad when all your tabs are for certain niche negative things. Green was bad outfits, Yellow was questionable dialogue, etc. My friends ended up quoting it later in the day just based off what I had told them. I don't DNF, but I should have.