Kristyn Malanowski-book review 2

Holder, Nancy, and Debbie Viguie. Witch. 2002. Ney York: Simon and 

               Schuster Children's Publishing Division, 2002. Print. Wicked 1.

Witch is the first book in the Wicked series.  This series is about an intergenerational feud between two magical families.  The main character, Holly, is thrown into the world if witches and warlocks after her parents are killed in a terrible accident.  She is flown to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Seattle.  Until the accident, Holly never even knew she had an aunt.  Eventually, Holly and her two cousins learn about their magical past and the intergenerational feud between her family, the Cahors (what is now Cathers), and a warlock family, the Deveraux.  Holly, Nicole, and Amanda must stick together and attempt to fulfill their shared destiny.  The first book is more of a lead in to the rest of the series.  The characters discover their past and learn about the other family who is trying to kill them. 

This book series has recently become my favorite of all time!  I recently picked up the special edition of Wicked, which contains both books one and two, and then I bought the other three books to the series within a week.  I am a fantasy freak and these books kept me on the edge of my seat.  I could not even put them down after I bought them.  Even though they are the stereotypical good versus evil, the way the story is told is just thrilling.  I was very depressed when I read the last book! I wanted there to be more to the series and was even a little disappointed in how it ended.  I love anything to do with witches and warlocks.  I loved how there are flashbacks to different centuries and how they allowed you to “see”, or get to know, different generations of Cahors witches.  Holly and Jer are possessed, in a way, by their ancestors, Jean and Isabeau, who have been traveling throughout time trying to kill each other.  Throughout each book, we are taken back in time and are told how the feud came about and why Isabeau and Jean are trying to destroy each other.  It is nice to have a book with a spin on it. 

The Wicked series is definitely for young adults.  Younger children would have a hard time following the books because of different time eras and how there a multiple leaps between the eras.  Sometimes you could be reading about one generation and a page later it could be one hundred years into the future or past.  The books also deal with a lot of violence and death.  It is possible that younger children, of the elementary age, could be given nightmares due to the descriptive deaths and violence.  I personally didn’t have a problem with the blood and guts, but I am also a college student and pretty much expected it. 

The storyline is based on two families, the Cahors and Deveraux, who are involved in an intergenerational feud.  We associate the Cahors (Cathers) with good and the Deveraux with evil.  We are convinced that the Deveraux are evil because they worship the Horned God, or the devil, and that the Cahors are good because they worship the Goddess.  In this book, we don’t really understand that both families started out evil.  Later on in the series, we learn that both families were evil to begin with and that they both wanted to destroy each other.  In the first book, we only get to see that the Deveraux want to kill the Cahors (Cathers) and thus they have to fight back to save their lives.  This book seems as if it is going to be the typical good versus evil story.  The further into the series you get, the more you learn about their family history and how they were equally bad to begin with.  We want the Cahors to be good because they are the ones being attacked, but you almost have to hate their ancestors as well because they were just as evil.  It is very confusing for a while, but all in all you have to side with the Cahors because they save the world from being destroyed and maintain the balance between good and evil.

I would associate this book with the love story of Romeo and Juliet.  Basically, you have these two feuding houses and a boy and a girl fall in love.  At first, their love is forced because their parents want to obtain the secret to the black fire.  The only way that the black fire can be conjured is by a Deveraux and a Cahors joining together.  The plan was for the two to marry and then there would be an invasion to destroy the opposing family members.  It just so happened that the mom put a curse on her daughter and if she didn’t kill her husband, they would travel through space and time and not move on until the deed was done.  The sad thing being that the couple actually fell in love and thus didn’t want to hurt each other. Therefore, you have two spirits traveling through time trying to kill each other so they can move on.  The spirits, Isabeau and Jean, eventually possess Holly and Jer who have also fallen into a forbidden love.  Neither couple wants to kill one another and yet is forced to try because of the feud.  You get the whole “we cannot trust him because he is a Deveraux” thing and Holly even references Romeo and Juliet because of the situation.  Don’t worry though, because in the end, the two lovers end up together.   Eventually you learn that the two families were forced into a feud long before Isabeau and Jer. These higher beings found that when a Deveraux and a Cahors joined together, there would be no power stronger than theirs.  Thus, there was a forced feud to keep the families from ever wanting to join powers.  I guess the moral would be to follow your heart no matter what others think...oh...and don't play with fire..because you will get burned!