I honestly don’t really want to write this review. I hate it when reviews aren’t good ones…but I’ve got to be honest. Plus it’s not ALL bad, so…yeah.

UGHHHH.

Let’s just get on with it.

Let’s talk about The Tormented Witch!

Title: The Tormented Witch

Author: J.C. Beckham

Publisher: Solopreneur

Series Status: The 1st book in the Crowded Souls series

Genre: Young Adult, Supernatural/Fantasy

Number of Pages:  324

(Found on back cover and Goodreads)

Apart from the fact that Leila Albergo was born in England, she was just like any other seventeen-year-old U.S. high schooler. That was until, by a dark twist of fate, she develops supernatural powers.

Leila is convinced that her feelings for school heartthrob Luca Jareau will remain unnoticed until he turns out to be her greatest ally. With his help, she must learn to control her magic and conceal the truth from everyone else, in order to protect the people she loves.

Leila also realises that some friends are not always who they seem to be and that staying alive at any cost, can sometimes be too high a price to pay.’

*I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

This book came to me way too late in my life. I’m pretty sure I’d have enjoyed this book so much more if I read it when I was younger…quite a bit younger.

I can see how this book might be enjoyed by some. I mean, it’s fun and quick to read. It has a decent plot.

But for the most part, I just found it hard to like this book.

Reason 1: The main character. I always say that if I don’t connect with the main character, I find it really difficult to enjoy the book. It IS who I’m reading about, after all. Well, for me the main character in this book just changed all the time, and I didn’t like her. One minute she’d be a funny, witty, sarcastic girl just trying to fit in, and I’d start liking her (even if I really didn’t agree with her attitude to certain things). But then the next minute (and for most of the book), she’d be quite selfish, or vain, or she’d think she knew better than everyone else. She just made me frown a lot really.

All the other characters were fine. I didn’t have anything wrong with them.

Reason 2: Relationship developments. And how QUICK did they happen? With the changes to the main character’s friendships and family life, I thought this book took place over quite a long time, with these things building up gradually.

Aaaaaand then I read a sentence that said it had only been 10 days since everything kicked off. WOAH.

I mean, if I could make new best friends that quickly, life would be a lot easier.

Reason 3: With how old I am now…everything just seemed a little bit ridiculous. Things were revealed too quickly, things were BELIEVED too quickly. The main character seemed to have the mindset of “well that’s ludicrous but OK” and never really tried to come up with other explanations for the things happening to her, as I’m sure every human being would.

“Part of me wanted to laugh at how ridiculous that sentence was but, on the other hand, what other explanation was there?”

I’m sure she could’ve thought of quite a few before giving in to whatever story she was told. Seriously, there’s hardly any hesitation from that girl.

There was also quite a lot of cliches in the book. Think of phrases like “Welcome to the dark side” and the typical good vs evil problem stripped to its very core. Though admittedly, these did amuse me somewhat. But they also made me cringe inside.

There was a lot of cringing for me. I just…couldn’t. 

I did like the flashback scenes. Though there were only a few, they added a slight bit of mystery to the story and left you guessing which bit is important. Someone’s background can really change their future decisions, so seeing that little bit extra of the story could completely change my predictions of what would happen.

And towards the end things became more interesting. More of the “evil” side comes into the story, and – to be quite frank – I like reading about the bad guys sometimes. Who doesn’t like a bit of a fantasy disaster to read about every so often?

I really do think I’d have enjoyed this if I was much younger. Maybe when I was going through my Twilight phase aged 12/13? The times when I wouldn’t judge as critically and cringe so much (a lot of things make me cringe, to be fair).

I really wish I had liked this story. The book definitely wasn’t bad, but I needed to be a lot younger to have enjoyed it properly. It was fun and quick to get through, thanks to being full of action in a very small time frame. But at the age I am now, I can’t say I loved this book. It was full of cliches and made me cringe. A lot.

Rated 2/5 stars

Amazon

[Available in Kindle and Paperback Edition]

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Have you read this book? What did you think?

If you haven’t, does this sound like something you’d like to read?

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Until next time…

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