Life's hard.

It's even harder when you're stupid.

John Wayne

Monday, April 30, 2012

Witch and Wizard by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet ★★☆☆☆

Witch and Wizard (Witch and Wizard, #1)

Awkward as a 6ft3 14-year-old
Fiction –YA - Fantasy
10 and up 5 and up 317 pages
December 1, 2009
Witch &Wizard #1

            As my first James Patterson book I went into this book with hopes high and great expectations of the story he had to share with me, but unfortunately things did not go as smoothly as I expected.

I found myself struggling to get past the constant weird breaks and put on teenager speak – I felt like they were trying really hard to be young and hip.  Don’t get me wrong I can really enjoy different viewpoints in a story, and the idea of Whit and Whitsy being ripped from their normal world into a hellish new reality was kind of exciting, but the choppiness of these breaks never allowed me to really get the rhythm of the story.  But still I soldiered on.  I would ignore the awkwardness, because I just knew Patterson had more to offer than I was seeing.  The book could still be redeemed

How wrong I was, it never got better! 

The characters never gained any depth, the writing didn’t improve –nothing about it felt organic -  and I never really could imagine the places they visited - the descriptions had no texture.  Worst by the end I didn’t even really care what happened to Whit and Whitsy.  I just wanted to finish the book.  I hate feeling that way.

The biggest problem by for me was I never could buy into it.  Don’t get me wrong Sci-Fi/Fantasy is my bread and butter and I can suspend my disbelief for the most amazing and on occasion ridiculous things.  I mean I really wanted to believe and immerse myself in another book world, but I couldn’t. 

I put a lot of effort into trying to like this book and I came to ask myself why.  A book like this shouldn’t take that much effort and with some introspection I realized I was only doing it because of James Patterson.  I wanted to like him, but in this case Mr. Patterson did not deserve my efforts.

Overall I give this book two stars.  I didn’t hate it, but nor did I really like it and the rare moments of wit and interesting premise – though in this case ill applied - did nothing to save it. 

Don’t bother to read it!

No comments:

Post a Comment

While I appreciate person's right to their own opinion - even when they disagree with me - please remember this blog is a place of respect for all. Keep it clean and temper your comments with kindness. Thank you!