Review: Bewitching by Alex Flinn

Hardcover: 336 pgs
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: February 14, 2012
Series: Kendra Chronicles

Bewitching can be a beast. . . .

Once, I put a curse on a beastly and arrogant high school boy. That one turned out all right. Others didn’t. I go to a new school now—one where no one knows that I should have graduated long ago. I’m not still here because I’m stupid; I just don’t age. You see, I’m immortal. And I pretty much know everything after hundreds of years—except for when to take my powers and butt out.

I want to help, but things just go awry in ways I could never predict. Like when I tried to free some children from a gingerbread house and ended up being hanged. After I came back from the dead (immortal, remember?), I tried to play matchmaker for a French prince and ended up banished from France forever. And that little mermaid I found in the Titanic lifeboat? I don’t even want to think about it.

Now a girl named Emma needs me. I probably shouldn’t get involved, but her gorgeous stepsister is conniving to the core. I think I have just the thing to fix that girl—and it isn’t an enchanted pumpkin. Although you never know what will happen when I start . . . bewitching.

Sidenote: I have seen the movie Beastly, but I've never read the book. To read Lisa's review of Beastly, click here.

Regardless of whether you've seen the film, Beastly, or read the book, you will undoubtedly remember the character of Kendra, the witch who first casts the spell on the Beast (you know, from Beauty & the Beast). Well, Bewitching follows Kendra throughout all 300 years of her life, and all the shenanigans she gets herself into. There is a re-telling of The Little Mermaid, another of the Princess and the Pea, and Kendra herself as Hansel, from Hansel and Gretel. Our over-arching story, though, focuses on a very loose re-telling of Cinderella.

I have to say - I found this book to be absolutely adorable, enchanting and - at the risk of sounding incredibly cheesy - bewitching. Kendra's point of view is filled with humor, sarcasm and the blatant truth that no one ever wants to hear. The way her intended good deeds always seem to backfire in her face is something completely unexpected and hilarious. Personally, I am a huge fan of fairy tales and the morals behind them. So anytime an author can take a story and spin it into something new, I am as happy as a clam!

In my opinion, Alex Flinn successfully transforms these stories for Young Adult readers as good or even better than Gregory McGuire does with Wicked. The stories are engaging, captivating and impossible to put down once started.

If I had to say one bad thing about this book, it's that there should be even more of Kendra! I love her character :)

5 out of 5 stars