Guinevere is 18 years old and about to graduate from high school. She’s typical in most respects, but unique in another: she’s a witch. You’d think spell casting would make life easier, but Guinevere’s got girlfriend trouble, boyfriend trouble, a talking cat who doesn’t know when to pipe down, and a demon abduction to contend with. What’s a girl to do?
Guinevere’s got another, slightly more serious problem to deal with, as well: she’s trapped in a book whose intended audience is anything but clear. At 74 pages, this looks like a chapter book targeted to young readers, but it opens with a sex scene –one that dearly needs copyediting. (Unless boyfriend Bryan is a deliveryman, “sliding his boxes down his legs” makes no sense.) An argument between two girls ends with one calling the other “self scented,” among other distracting errors.
As these examples illustrate, numerous spelling errors, misused quotation marks and a general air of haste make for difficult going here. The book’s first paragraph is an 84-word run-on phrase, not a complete sentence, and the rest of the book follows in the same vein.
Author Kristen Mylonas may have some great ideas about the ups and downs of a young woman with a unique gift, but they can’t shine through the fog created by the writing here. Mylonas ends this volume with a list of questions (including “WHAT DECISION WILL GUINEVERE DECIDE?”), as if in anticipation of a sequel. Before getting to that point, it would be a great kindness to her readers to thoroughly outline, rewrite and edit this volume, in hopes of making it easier to understand.
Also available in hardcover and ebook.
