Bookworm in the City

No. 17 – A book with an antonym in the title
Big little spells / Hazel Beck
(book two of the Witchlore series)

This wasn’t an easy category to fill and I admit: I settled for this book.
Like in real life, one shouldn’t settle because it’ll only end in disappointment. Yup, this one became a DNF: Did Not Finish.

Books about witches are generally not on my radar but they’re hard to ignore this time of year, and because it’s a genre that seems to be particularly into pun-fun titles, I put my doubts aside and went for it.
And it might be on me for picking the second book in a series, but I never got into swing of things: it felt like jumping onto a moving merry-go-round. This book picks up right where the first one ended and I never truly found my balance and kept stumbling through it. And because that’s no fun either on a merry-go-round nor in a book, I eventually gave up and jumped off. I’m still counting it for the reading challenge though, because I did give it my all and didn’t quit until page 212 out of 374.

The story is about Rebekah and Emerson Wilde, sisters and witches. After Emerson has re-discovered her witch-being, and Rebekah helped her and her friends save their hometown (book one), the book starts with the sisters and their friends facing the local coven to face the consequences of their actions. Something had happened ten years ago that had Emerson forget that she’s a witch and Rebekah was exiled, and because they have broken those punishments the coven decides that the sisters have to take an exam on their witch skills. I guess you can’t have witches with half-skills running around. Along with their friends they also have to attend their local high school’s prom. This is not just a prom, but more of a coming out like they do in high society with involvement from the parents.
A lot of the drama is high school related and not in the healthy grown-up way where time and distance make you look back and reflect, but in a way that felt petty and silly. This made the story feel more YA than the witchy rom-com it says it is.

The first twenty pages contain a lot of introductions with names, and titles attached to them (there are diviners, immortals, healers), and it felt more like an information dump than actual story. And although the story is not that complicated to get into, there was something about the style that didn’t work for me. There was a lot of inner-thought narrating (that just never seemed to stop), and especially in combination with the information dumping it didn’t feel natural. (Nor super-natural).
Then I started noticing that there was a lot of cursive to emphasize words. On top of that, the cursive is also used for internalized conversations with cats, text message conversations, spells, and text that is being read, and it was so much that it overshot its intention and reached a point that it became distracting and annoying. It got so bad that I started to keep track of it for a chapter, and out of twenty pages there was one (one!) that didn’t have this tool used.
I don’t consider myself a nit-picker but when a story isn’t pulling you in, you notice these things.

Because it’s (sort-of) a rom-com, Rebekah has a love interest. This is local immortal Nicholas. Nicholas and Rebekah have history, and not in the good way: ten years ago, he set her up to fail and now she needs him to teach her and her sister and friends what they need to know for their exams. Needless to say, Rebekah isn’t happy about the situation and doesn’t trust him as far as she can hit him with lightening. Everybody that witnesses them arguing and battling in magical fights, comments that they have so much tension together but I didn’t feel that. I also didn’t really feel the connection between any of the other characters; there was a lot of description but not enough showing for me.
Rebekah complains that she’s being treated like a teenager, but she’s also acting like one. When I started the book, I kept going back to the part where her age is mentioned to remind myself of it because she reads young and immature. She’s considered edgy and cool (mostly by herself) because of her tattoos and piercings and choice of clothes. I guess this was all meant as a way to indicate her status as the local rebel but again, the actions to cement that were lacking. Rebekah came across more like someone who really wants to be something, rather than is something. And for a main character in a very specific state of being, that’s problematic.

When I was ready to call it quits, I checked the last chapter to see how this book ends, hoping that would intrigue me into continuing. Unfortunately, it didn’t and realized I just didn’t care enough about these characters to put in more effort. While I really wanted to like this book, I admitted defeat and gave up: it and I just didn’t click.

If you do want to dig in and give it a go, I strongly suggest starting with the first book in the series (Small Town, Big Magic). And if you really can’t get enough, it might be good to know that there is a third book as well (Truly Madly Magically).