Witch & Wizard

Customer Reviews

• 2 out of 5
  
  
  by Anna Luisa from Vail, AZ | Mar 1, 2010
  

  Witch & Wizard takes you on the journey of Whit and Wisty as they fight their way against the New Order and search for their missing parents, discovering their magical powers along the way. “The next Harry Potter” the commercials on TV said about this book. So I bought it thinking I would enjoy it as much as I enjoyed reading the Harry Potter series. How I was horribly deceived. I wanted to like this book. I really did. Unfortunately, there were just so many faults with this book that I actually ended up disliking it greatly.
  
  I’d have to say the biggest flaw about this book was that it was just filled with way too many concepts. I knew it would be magical, since the title is Witch & Wizard. However, magic was not the book’s only concept. There were others. In fact, the author tried stuffing as many concepts as he could into this book that it just ended up being one giant Frankenstein of a mess. There was magic, there was supernaturalism, and then there was also a post-apocalyptic theme. None of these concepts meshed together properly, not even supernaturalism, which can stem off of magic naturally, yet seemed out of place in this book. The post-apocalyptic theme seemed the most out of place, however. In fact, this concept was so rushed in the book that even the main characters were unaware of it until a jail mate explained it to them in explicit detail.
  
  The characters were also a problem in this book. I can’t say I hated the main characters Wisty and Whit, because I really didn’t, but I didn’t like them. They weren’t interesting enough or even unique enough for me to like them. They were kind of just cookie cutter images of teenagers. Which leads to another problem about the characters in Witch & Wizard. They were all terribly clichéd. Wisty was the rebellious and sarcastic teenager, Whit was the supposed perfect brother and attractive jock, Byron was that weaselly (literally) teacher’s-pet sort of kid no one liked in school, Celia was the wonderful and beautiful and all around perfect girlfriend, the Visitor was the type of elderly and cynical villain that was so stereotyped not even Disney would have used him, and The One Who Is the One was… Lex Luthor? Seriously, The One Who Is the One was described in such a way that I thought of Lex Luthor from Superman every time, physically and personality wise. The only character I really did like was Sasha, and he didn’t even have that huge of a role.
  
  The dialogue in this book was something else that bothered me. Sometimes some of the lines that came of the characters’ mouths were unnatural. Sometimes corny at best. Wisty and Whit talked in a way that real teenagers don’t talk. It didn’t feel like teenagers were narrating it at all because of how their dialogue sounded. Some of the things they said were almost painful for me to read. As I said, the dialogue’s main problem in Witch & Wizard was that it was unrealistic and odd, almost forced, and that it was just plain cheesy at times. The romance in this book was also cheesy, and so uninteresting that I could have cared less about it. In fact, I didn’t care about the romance in this book at all as it had no real development. They were already dating and in love, leaving the readers with nothing to look forward to.
  
  Unfortunately, now that I have actually bought this book and finished it, I’m going to have to buy the second one and read that, because the readers are left with this huge (and admittedly rushed) cliffhanger. And, honestly, I’m curious to see how they end up finding their parents. I suppose my main problem was that I started reading this book with high hopes and the assumption that this was going to be a great read. I only ended up being greatly disappointed. This wasn’t the worst book I read, because I have read far worse, but this was still an unsatisfying book to read, at least for me.

  
  
   7 people found this review helpful
  
  

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• 2 out of 5
  
  
  by Alex (Tales of a Teenage Book Lover) from The United States | Mar 6, 2010
  

  If you are expecting this to be "the next Harry Potter", you will be deeply let down. I saw the ads for this book and had very high hopes that this would be the next series to captivate audiences around the world, gain its own movies, and achieve its own fansites. I honestly don't think it will even get close.
  
  The plot of this story had great potential, but the way it was executed made it hard for me to enjoy this book. I felt as though it was trying to be HP so much that it, quite frankly sucked.I found it hard to believe that with magical parents, you would not know you had magical powers until you were convicted for them and then suddenly have complete control on them in a matter of days. I had several problems with the writing also, I thought the language the teenagers in this book use was not realistic to what it actually is. For example, when Whit finds out he will be put to death he says, "tough noogies". I find it very hard to believe that I would say something like that if I had just found out I would die in a matter of weeks. I also thought that it was hard to remember who's POV the story was in because it kept changing back in forth. Another problem I had was that everything happened so fast that I didn't know what was going on, especially at the end.
  
  The cliffhanger ending indicates that several more books in the series will follow, but I am not so excited to find out what they hold in store.
  

  
  
   1 people found this review helpful
  
  

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• 1 out of 5
  
  
  by Jessica from The United States | Apr 13, 2010
  

  I rarely stop refuse to continue reading a book I have started, but I just refused to finish this one...I was very interested in reading this book after seeing it described as being a new series for Harry Potter fans...which, as it turns out, is extremely misleading!! I think there were good ideas for a storyline behind this book, but the writing was so lacking (no detail, lacking any emotion, poor character development, etc.) that I just had to give up on the book completely...it's too bad, because I don think it could have been a good story if it was approached in the right way

  
  
   1 people found this review helpful
  
  

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• 4 out of 5
  
  
  by Tracy from Fletcher, NC | Jun 18, 2010
  

  Witch & Wizard by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet is supposed to be a book for young-adults, although given the ages of the hero and heroine of the book, 17 and 15 respectively, middle grade readers would probably also enjoy the story. I know I enjoyed it and I am well into adulthood. There is no sex and I don't recall any offensive language, so there is no reason why it wouldn't be appropriate for both young-adult and middle-grade readers.
  
  Witch & Wizard is the story of Whit and Wisty, a brother and a sister with magic in their blood. Whit and Wisty are a wizard and a witch, although neither of them is aware of their talents until they are kidnapped from their home in the middle of the night by soldiers of a new government, known as the New Order, or N.O. for short.
  
  The night of their kidnapping, which takes place in front of their parents, Wisty's abilities as a witch begin to manifest. When she is accosted by the soldiers of the New Order Wisty suddenly becomes a human torch with fire shooting out several feet from her body until someone finally puts her out with a pail full of water. The soldiers are burned, but Wisty is unharmed. Wisty and her brother Whit are then jailed and put on trial for being a witch and a wizard. They plead not guilty but are not given a lawyer and don't have any rights. They are found guilty of witchcraft and general teenage behaviors and sentenced to be executed when they turn eighteen. Whit is only one month away from being eighteen!
  
  I found this to be a thoroughly entertaining tale. I'll be looking forward to reading the next volume in this story when it comes out. I can't wait until my son comes back from a visit to New York so I can give him this book to read. He's going to love it.
  
  What follows is an excerpt from Witch & Wizard told from Wisty's perspective:
  
  "I used to think detention was kinda fun. A badge of honor, almost. Man, how quickly things can change.
  
  This was the real thing.
  
  My old life, and the days of recklessly skipping class, felt like a million worlds away now. I missed it, and our house, and especially our mom and dad, so badly that I felt like I was going to lose it.
  
  I stared at the ceiling and daydreamed, remembering...
  
  How Mom used to lie in bed with Whit and me when we were really little, and she'd laugh and laugh, and tell us that she was teaching us how to love laughter, because it was one of the very best things in life, maybe the best.
  
  And...
  
  How Dad always said he had to be our father, not our friend-and that there was an important distinction between the two-but somehow he ended up being out best friend anyway."
  
  Witch & Wizard. copyright 2009 by James Patterson, published by Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017, ISBN 978-0-316-03624-5

  
  

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• 3 out of 5
  
  
  by Daniel from Littleton, CO | May 23, 2010
  

  I was expecting a lot from this book when I first picked it up. And it wasn't bad. It just wasn't up to the expectations I had had for Patterson here.
  The premise was good, the story itself okay. I mean, they spent like 150 pages just being taken to prison. And then like 100 attacking a prison. So there it seemed a bit slow. Nothing much really happened. I could probably summarize the book in a few sentences.
  Also, I don't really like characters who "come back" when you never knew them in the first place. Celia and Byron were examples of this. It's supposed to be this whole emotional thing of Woah, betrayal. And I thought he was good! or something like that, but instead you're like Alright. I didn't even know him in the first place. So why does that matter? instead. That's one of the things I disliked about The Angel Experiment and how Patterson "brought back" Ari. If you're gonna do that, wait a bit before they betray us. Like have a whole book before that one that goes into their character. That's why in Eldest (Spolier!) Murtagh's betrayal was much more effective. Because we got to know him quite well beforehand.
  Also, some of the wording in this book was a bit awkward. Like Patterson tried to use some expressions that really don't work in writing. (At the beginning he used "Jeez, Louise" and I spent a few minutes looking around thinking Who the heck is Louise? before I realized it was just an idiomatic expression.)
  Other than that, the book was pretty good. A couple things here and there, but I'll read the sequel when it comes out and I'm still a big Patterson fan.

  
  

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