Official Review: Apprentice Witches by Rainy Burke
Posted: 15 May 2020, 10:31
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Apprentice Witches" by Rainy Burke.]
In Apprentice Witches by Rainy Burke, 16-year-old Isabel is introduced to a new world when she is awoken in the middle of the night by her grandmother and her grandmother’s friend, Miss Daisy. She is surprised when they tell her that they need her help because Miss Daisy has turned her brothers into toads. They return the boys to normal, and the next day, her grandmother visits and offers her an apprenticeship to learn magic and join the Sovereign Sisterhood of Good Witches. As Isabel begins to learn magic, she has a dream about a famous rock band, Lucifer’s Lockets, who are bad witches and using their fans in a spell. Isabel is determined to find a way to stop them. Will she succeed?
At less than 70 pages, this novella is a quick, enjoyable read. I liked the plot and the characters. There were also some really nice descriptions. My favorite moments in the book were when Isabel is at the Witches Dome and the rooms that are described, like the library and the main meeting hall. I was easily able to picture the rooms in my mind. That being said, there were a few things that bothered me.
The thing I liked the least about this story was that there was not enough conflict involved in fighting the bad witches, and most of the action took place in the last ten pages. It didn’t feel rushed, but I wish it would have been a bit more drawn out and exciting.
There were also times that some odd phrasing was used and peculiar details were included. For example, when Isabel is being described, it says, “To her credit, she had an athletic body at a hundred and twenty pounds and five foot four. This was in the acceptable percentile for sixteen-year-olds.” This is just a strange way to say this, and it brought me out of the story because I was wondering why the author put it like that.
This book also needs a lot more editing. It only took five pages for me to find ten errors. However, none of the mistakes affected the readability of the story. Most of them were incorrect capitalization and misplaced quotation marks.
Overall, despite the things I had a problem with, I did enjoy this story. Therefore, I am rating this book 2 out of 4 stars. The multitude of editing errors and the strange phrasing and unnecessary details keeps me from giving it 3 stars. I recommend this book to fantasy fans who like stories with magic and witches. I think younger teens and preteens would enjoy this book more than older readers because of the easy conflict resolution.
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Apprentice Witches
View: on Bookshelves
In Apprentice Witches by Rainy Burke, 16-year-old Isabel is introduced to a new world when she is awoken in the middle of the night by her grandmother and her grandmother’s friend, Miss Daisy. She is surprised when they tell her that they need her help because Miss Daisy has turned her brothers into toads. They return the boys to normal, and the next day, her grandmother visits and offers her an apprenticeship to learn magic and join the Sovereign Sisterhood of Good Witches. As Isabel begins to learn magic, she has a dream about a famous rock band, Lucifer’s Lockets, who are bad witches and using their fans in a spell. Isabel is determined to find a way to stop them. Will she succeed?
At less than 70 pages, this novella is a quick, enjoyable read. I liked the plot and the characters. There were also some really nice descriptions. My favorite moments in the book were when Isabel is at the Witches Dome and the rooms that are described, like the library and the main meeting hall. I was easily able to picture the rooms in my mind. That being said, there were a few things that bothered me.
The thing I liked the least about this story was that there was not enough conflict involved in fighting the bad witches, and most of the action took place in the last ten pages. It didn’t feel rushed, but I wish it would have been a bit more drawn out and exciting.
There were also times that some odd phrasing was used and peculiar details were included. For example, when Isabel is being described, it says, “To her credit, she had an athletic body at a hundred and twenty pounds and five foot four. This was in the acceptable percentile for sixteen-year-olds.” This is just a strange way to say this, and it brought me out of the story because I was wondering why the author put it like that.
This book also needs a lot more editing. It only took five pages for me to find ten errors. However, none of the mistakes affected the readability of the story. Most of them were incorrect capitalization and misplaced quotation marks.
Overall, despite the things I had a problem with, I did enjoy this story. Therefore, I am rating this book 2 out of 4 stars. The multitude of editing errors and the strange phrasing and unnecessary details keeps me from giving it 3 stars. I recommend this book to fantasy fans who like stories with magic and witches. I think younger teens and preteens would enjoy this book more than older readers because of the easy conflict resolution.
******
Apprentice Witches
View: on Bookshelves
