relaxed4. Title: Witch & Wizard
Author: James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet © 2009
Pages: 307
Thoughts: Link
Review in five words or less: Interesting, intense; short and choppy.
Personal Rating: «««½ out of five.
This is the story of Whit and Wisty Allgood, teenage siblings who have been accused of being a wizard and witch by ruling regime. They've been unjustly ripped away from their family and thrown into prison. Totally confused and terrified, the siblings must rely on each other to survive. As they learn more about their jail, they notice that most of the other prisoners are their age or younger.
While I think this was a good read, I did not really like how this story was told. It starts off with this one big event and then goes back into time to describe the things that happened leading up to this event. The only problem is the story never goes back to the big event. I found that to be extremely vexing because it makes the whole book feel incomplete. I know this is the first book in the series, but it was just so unsatisfying to have it end so abruptly and not address the issues of the big event.
Also, the short and choppy chapters were annoying. It seems that Patterson does this a lot in his books to make them fast-paced, but I think this is the type of story that deserves more descriptive detailing. A lot of story space was consumed by superfluous name calling and ridiculously placed chapter breaks. I would have preferred more story/details and less posturing.
The book was engrossing and entertaining enough for me to want to see how this all turns out, so I will definitely read the next book in the series. I do recommend this, but if I had to do it over again, I would have waited for the release of the second book. Maybe reading books one and two together would make the story feel more complete.
