Author: Meg Cabot
Book Link

I’ll be the first to admit this isn’t my type of book, nor is it something I would have a passive interest in reading. I suppose if my wife threw it my way and told me I should read it to expand my horizons, I would put it in the buffer.

However, for the sake of reading books I think my students would enjoy, I picked it up.

Then I powered my way through it because it hooked me.

Meg Cabot is a wonderful writer whose prose is compelling enough to keep you glued to the page, even if the content isn’t up your alley. It was easy to see why many of her books (both adult and young adult) were bestsellers… a point I completely forgot about before I started.

The story follows the main character, Jean aka Jinx, who attributes herself to having the worst luck in the world. Through an incident at home, slowly revealed throughout the book, she is forced to move to New York to live with her aunt and uncle.

She meets her cousin who has completely changed… teenage drama… and a touch of accusations about being a witch… and you have yourself a story that unfolds nicely to the last page.

The only aspect that irked me was the whole witchcraft theme. It almost felt wedged into this story and flirted with, but never embraced. It was like an invisible barrier Cabot was willing to gently step over the line into without ever leaping. This would have been fine if the story wrapped this thread up nicely, but it fell just short.

Still a fun read and I learned my lesson (again!) about not judging a book by its cover.