Reviewed by Christy
Esme is a good babysitter. Maybe
other seventeen-year-olds would consider it a lame job but it’s better than
working the drive-thru window, in her opinion. She even has a “club” (with her
best friend Janis being the only other member) modeled after the Babysitters
Club books she loved as a kid. It isn’t until new girl Cassandra arrives at
their school, demanding to join the club for mysterious reasons, that Esme
begins to suspect that maybe she’s not another average teenager.
The Babysitters Coven has a
fun cover and premise, so I was very excited to read it. I was a little let
down. Esme and Cassandra have special powers (telekinesis and pyrokinesis respectively).
They both come from a long lineage of young women with special skills tasked
with protecting the world from demons. Female Sitters come of age as teenagers
while being mentored by older male Counsel. It sounds a lot like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which I guess
is the point because characters in the book make the connection, and the book
itself is marketed as Adventures in
Babysitting meets Buffy the Vampire
Slayer. Which is fine but it still felt a little lazy.
I know I’m not the target age
demographic but Esme reads very young, almost middle school age. The whole book
feels a little more juvenile than it needs to be, especially the text speak
that is thrown into the prose as well as the dialogue. (I’m not sure anyone
says “TBH” out loud?) I also hoped it would be a little more witchy. Perhaps a
group of neighborhood girls become friends and discover witchcraft on their own
terms – not as part of some great chosen family line. But I don’t fault the
book for my differing expectations.
Though not a bad book by any means,
I found it hard to stay invested at points, and ultimately thought it was a
little forgettable. I think it could be a fun read for preteens, however. And
hey, maybe they’ll even discover Buffy
by reading it.
** I
received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for
an honest review. **
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