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Witch Baby always felt out of place. With her tangled up hair and purple eyes and anger, she was never as soft and gentle as her almost-mom Weetzie, or her half-sister Cherokee. Only Angel Juan could ever make her feel like she belonged. So when he tells her he’s leaving, that he needs to go to New York and be on his own, she can’t understand, and runs away. When she wakes up and realizes she didn’t get to say goodbye, she decides she’s going to follow and look for him.
When no letters follow his first postcard to her, she becomes even more frantic, and knows she has to go. She asks permission to stay in Charlie Bat’s apartment, and sets off for the city.
Upon arrival she metts Meadows and Mallard, two kindly gentlemen who take care of Charlie’s apartment during the year. They take her to dinner, but as it turns out, they’re Ghost Hunters, and are off to Ireland. Witch Baby would wallow in her aloneness, if not for the appearance of a spectral Charlie.
With his help, Witch Baby wanders the city, usually searching for Angel Juan, sometimes sidetracked by her Ghostly Grandfather, but almost always gaining a new appreciation for life.
In the end, she follows her heart, which leads her to Angel Juan, and to some realizations about the dangers of the way she wants to cling to him and keep him to herself.
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First and foremost, if you haven’t read the first two books of this trilogy (The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye), I wouldn’t start with this one. Without all the back-story there’s a lot to miss. That being said, I think this might have been the best of the three.
We’re back in London, after the downfall of the Lovelace affair, and Nathaniel/Jonathan Mandrake, is now Information Minister. The Commoners are growing restless, the war in America is going poorly, and Bartimaeus has been kept in service for so long that his powers are all but gone. The government is beginning to split into factions, everyone is always looking over their shoulders, and the lower magicians seem to be plotting something.
It turns out the elusive Hopkins is returned. Finding him becomes top priority. In the meantime, Mandrake also learns that Kitty Jones is not, as he had thought, dead. Finding her then becomes his top priority. And just when it seems like things might be falling into place….everything comes apart.
The entire government is kidnapped, the streets overflow with commoners who’ve noticed a lack of government response, and Mandrake and Kitty have fallen into the middle of a most sordid plot.
This was the quickest read of the trilogy, for me, and even though I knew it was winding down, in the end I harbor hopes that perhaps there will be another story someday.
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When Dulcie’s Father accidentally kills himself, it’s a bit of a shock. When her mother decides to move them off to California, it’s more than Dulcie is prepared to take. When she finds out her mother intends to get rid of her father’s truck, she officially draws the line: she takes it and drives herself back to Connecticut.
Upon arrival, she meets not her grandfather, as expected, but a girl she’s never seen before standing in the flowers. Roxanne, who now works for Dulcie’s grandfather, knows exactly who Dulcie is, and that her grandfather has been expecting her.
The welcome isn’t as warm as she had hoped. Turns out taking off and going cross-country as a teen worries your elders. But Frank does agree to let her stay. She even gets her old job back, though as punishment she will receive no pay for the summer. She also has to call her mother. This stipulation is easier to get around: she knows when her mother is going to be at work, and always makes sure to call when she won’t be there.
Back at work as a janitor, Dulcie makes fast friends with Roxanne, whom Frank has somewhat adopted, as it seems she’s not necessarily well taken care of at home. The night Dulcie drops by with her to get fresh clothes on their way to dinner with Dulcie’s suprise-visiting mother, Dulcie finds out just how bad Roxanne’s home life is. This harsh glimpse at events causes a flurry of actions on multiple fronts, which almost lead to disaster.
In the end, Dulcie, who’s always known who she is, gains a greater understanding of relationships, friendships, love, and home. Roxanne, who’s never had it great, adopts Dulcie’s family. While perhaps no one’s ended up quite where they expected, they all know they’ve found their place.
An excellent book, worth reading again (and again).
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Josie, Nicolette and Aviva have one thing in common. He goes by the intials T.L., and he misled them all.
Josie, who never cared much for boys or what others thought of her in the word of Middle School, finds herself slightly less certain upon entering High School. And even though she balks are her own reactions when a hot Senior jock starts paying her attention, she finds herself somehow unable to resist. But he continually pushes her boundries, trying to move beyond where she’s prepared to go. Unwilling to give in, she eventually finds herself left behind. Her situation reminds her of the book Forever, and she seeks it out in the Library in order to begin her payback.
Nicolette has always gone with boys from other schools. She knows what she likes, and knows that in High School it would be bound to lead to a bad rap, since she’s not a guy. But the story of Josie travels the halls, and Nicolette is sure she must not have had what it took. T.L. seems mighty fine to her. She steps right up to be next in line. And even though there are no dates, and she’s never invited to sit with the crew at Lunch, the fact that they have their own special place within the school soothes her.
Until she hears about Aviva.
Until the day with the frog in Biology, Aviva is pretty sure she never entered into T.L.’s radar. But they seem to hit it off, and when he asks her to a party, she says yes. Soon, weekends with the boy become a regular thing, and Aviva’s other life is forgotten. Old friends try to warn her, but she sees things differently. She’s sure this is different. She gives him what he wants, only to find out she gave too much.
One more of many to be left in tears, Aviva takes Josie’s advice and heads to the library to check out Forever. She finds all empty space covered with stories and warning of the one and only T.L. and wonders how it can be possible. And yet, for all that, the girls he’s damaged have all come out for the better, with a little more knowledge to help them along the way. It’s a pretty safe bet that in the end, all he’ll get out of it is a list of empty names.
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After bullying incidents lead him to carry a knife to school, Gray Wilton finds himself suspended, and uprooted. Starting High School with a clean slate, and in a new town, he hopes that somehow things will be better in Connecticut. Maybe he can try harder, maybe the kids will be nicer, maybe his father will understand.
But though he makes some friends, and joins the school band, where he can play drums, it doesn’t take long for the bullies to find him. Teachers look the other way. Ignoring them doesn’t make them stop, fighting back only makes it worse, telling makes it worst of all. His father is just as angry, his life seems just as hopeless.
Throughout Gray’s story we feel his pain, and see the world through his eyes, and understand how he came to feel so low. And yet even with all said and done he doesn’t seem quite able to understand what’s truly happened, what he’s really done, the impact of his actions.
A sincere look into the everyday events of teenage life, and how the actions of those around us can escalate from harmless to deadly when carefully averted eyes refuse to see.
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If you appreciate a darker sense of humor, this is a book for you. If not, you might only end up wanting to throttle the cast.
Sarina Summers is perfect in every way. Except for her pinky fingers. Their slight crookedness mars her style, and so when she is 16, she gets drunk and has her mother break them.
Nicole Hicks lives across the street, and has idolized Sarina her whole life. Her mother is nicer, her life is better. As long as you keep her happy, she’ll return the favor. And all Nicole wants is to keep this balance. So much so that she intentionally fails 10th grade, thinking it will better her chances for a friendship, when in fact it proves to be her undoing.
Bitty Jack Carlson grew up in a small town, on a Summer Camp. Summers, she attends. The rest of the year, she’s home-schooled. The year Sarina attends, life changes forever.
Caught using a hairdryer in an unusual fashion by Bitty Jack’s father while he’s changing a light bulb, Sarina cries abuse. Camp maintenance workers are no longer allowed into cabins without staff invitation, and her father is not allowed to work in them at all during summer, but otherwise, things mostly blow over. Until years down the line when Bitty Jack is dating Sarina’s first boyfriend, and Sarina’s life is coming apart at the seems.
Sarina hatches a plan to get Stewart back. The plan? Out herself as an abuse survivor at a Take Back the Night rally, where both Stewart and Bitty Jack will be there to hear. The back-lash causes the Camp to come under siege by the Press and thus ends the Carlson’s have always known. So when Nicole Hicks climbs through Bitty Jack’s window late one night with her own plan, rather than being afraid, Bitty Jack is mesmerized.
She has few details. They need to hijack the mascot uniform from Stewart. That’s all she knows. From the President’s Box she looks on, and as we wait for Nicole’s plan to hash out, we come to find Bitty Jack had one of her own.
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