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A review by emilyrainsford
The Bell Witches by Lindsey Kelk
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
16 year old girl gets orphaned, has to go live with the grandma she's never met, finds out she's a witch who might cause the end of the world.
That's the basic gist of this story and I do think it's funny that in all her visions of "the end of the world", it's just her grandma's little town in the southern US having a fire lol. You'd think a girl who has spent her life travelling all over the world, from NZ to Wales, would know that "the world" extends beyond Savannah, Georgia, but hey ho.
That said, I honestly enjoyed this witchy lil YA story. Was it mad 2010s YA vibes? Definitely, but I love 2010s YA vibes. Was there instalove? Totally, but it seems somehow realistic that a 16 year old would meet a hot forbidden boy and immediately decide that he was the love of her life and she'd sacrifice anything for him. If you don't want your book to have teenagers behaving like teenagers in it, don't read YA.
One thing this book does have is a wonderful sense of place - never in my life have I desired to visit the US South before this, but after reading this and looking up pictures (to help with my mental movie), Savannah honestly seems super pretty and I kinda wanna go there.
Look, does this book have a lot of classic cliches in it? Totally but that's the fun of it.
I'm not sure because apparently publishers are *allergic* to putting this information absolutely freaking anywhere, but it reads like the first book in a series to me? There is some resolution but it definitely feels like the story isn't finished. I would totally read the next one. It's a light, easy, fun YA read.
That's the basic gist of this story and I do think it's funny that in all her visions of "the end of the world", it's just her grandma's little town in the southern US having a fire lol. You'd think a girl who has spent her life travelling all over the world, from NZ to Wales, would know that "the world" extends beyond Savannah, Georgia, but hey ho.
That said, I honestly enjoyed this witchy lil YA story. Was it mad 2010s YA vibes? Definitely, but I love 2010s YA vibes. Was there instalove? Totally, but it seems somehow realistic that a 16 year old would meet a hot forbidden boy and immediately decide that he was the love of her life and she'd sacrifice anything for him. If you don't want your book to have teenagers behaving like teenagers in it, don't read YA.
One thing this book does have is a wonderful sense of place - never in my life have I desired to visit the US South before this, but after reading this and looking up pictures (to help with my mental movie), Savannah honestly seems super pretty and I kinda wanna go there.
Look, does this book have a lot of classic cliches in it? Totally but that's the fun of it.
I'm not sure because apparently publishers are *allergic* to putting this information absolutely freaking anywhere, but it reads like the first book in a series to me? There is some resolution but it definitely feels like the story isn't finished. I would totally read the next one. It's a light, easy, fun YA read.