I'm not still here because I'm stupid I just don't age. I go to a new school nowone where no one knows that I should have graduated long ago. Emma was far kinder than I would have been.Once, I put a curse on a beastly and arrogant high school boy. Lisette is great fun to hate, especially when the Reader finds out just how manipulative she really is. While I groaned over her continued efforts to dismiss Lisette’s frankly spoiled behavior (because we Readers just know where this is going), I couldn’t help but give Emma a little mental pat on the back for trying to think good thoughts. Loved it! Emma is a completely relateable protagonist, and I found her doubly so because of her bookishness. The Cinderella character is actually the rotten one, while the stepsister is the girl who is really misunderstood. The interplay between Emma and Lisette is wonderfully well developed, and I loved the flip in their roles. The gingerbread children were definitely in keeping with the oddly entertaining gruesomeness of the Grimm fairy tales (sorry to break it to all the Disney lovers, but fairy tales aren’t fluffy little stories filled with charming talking animals far from it). I loved the retelling of Hansel and Gretel, as well as the other two fairy tales that Kendra ends up telling as a sort of “back story” to her decisions. I never got much of a sense of what sort of humor she had in Beastly, but this one really revealed her true nature, and I really like her. Although you never know that will happen when I start bewitching.

I think I have just the right thing to fix that girl - and it isn't an enchanted pumpkin. I probably shouldn't get involved, but her gorgeous stepsister is conniving to the core. And that little mermaid I found in the Titanic lifeboat? I don't even want to think about it. 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. Like when I tried to free some children from a gingerbread house and ended up being hanged. I want to help, but things just go awry in ways I could never predict.

And I pretty much know everything after hundreds of years - except for when to take my powers and butt out. I go to a new school now - one where no one knows that I should have graduated long ago. Once, I put a curse on a beastly and arrogant high school boy.

Bewitching by Alex Flinn