Witch World

Gr 10 Up—Jessie Ralle starts out as a typical teenager with a complicated love life. She and some friends, including her ex, all head to Las Vegas to celebrate graduation. Strange things start to happen, culminating in Jessie's getting murdered and mysteriously brought back to life-with superpowers. As if that weren't enough, she finds herself in a parallel version of Vegas. Luckily, her long-lost father turns up to explain everything. Less luckily, there is a lot of explaining to do. It turns out that Jessie is a witch, or a human with superpowered genetics. Now that she has "connected" to her true nature (by dying), she will start experiencing life in dual universes: one day in the regular world followed by the same day in the witch world. There are also two versions of herself, Jessie and Jessica, and Jessica, the witch version, has a baby named Lara who has been kidnapped by a rival group of witches who are trying to take over the world and … so on. The complications of the two universes and the fact that all of the characters have two versions of themselves make the already-convoluted plot completely unmanageable. Also off-putting is the way that the rules of Witch World seem to be inconsistently applied and the characters, including the protagonist, are frequently unsympathetic. Though the book is written for teens, the characters talk and act like adults, and there is no shortage of sex and violence, making the novel most appropriate for older teens. Even the most dedicated Pike fans may have trouble making their way through this messy tome.—Eliza Langhans, Hatfield Public Library, MA