Welcome! I've had this book on my list for a while now and am excited to share
it with you as part of this tour. Check out my review and the giveaway below...
it with you as part of this tour. Check out my review and the giveaway below...
The Babysitters CovenBy Kate Williams
YA Fantasy, Witches
Hardcover & ebook, 368 Pages
September 17th 2019 by Delacorte Press
Summary
Adventures in Babysitting meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this funny, action-packed novel about a coven of witchy babysitters who realize their calling to protect the innocent and save the world from an onslaught of evil.
Seventeen-year-old Esme Pearl has a babysitters club. She knows it's kinda lame, but what else is she supposed to do? Get a job? Gross. Besides, Esme likes babysitting, and she's good at it.
And lately Esme needs all the cash she can get, because it seems like destruction follows her wherever she goes. Let's just say she owes some people a new tree.
Enter Cassandra Heaven. She's Instagram-model hot, dresses like she found her clothes in a dumpster, and has a rebellious streak as gnarly as the cafeteria food. So why is Cassandra willing to do anything, even take on a potty-training two-year-old, to join Esme's babysitters club?
The answer lies in a mysterious note Cassandra's mother left her: "Find the babysitters. Love, Mom."
Turns out, Esme and Cassandra have more in common than they think, and they're about to discover what being a babysitter really means: a heroic lineage of superpowers, magic rituals, and saving the innocent from seriously terrifying evil. And all before the parents get home.
Read an excerpt from Penguin HERE.
My Review
THE BABYSITTERS COVEN is, as the book summary states, a mash-up of Adventures in Babysitting and Buffy. These sitters don't know what is going on, but they know something is and do their best to protect those they're supposed to. YA fans who like their stories full of friendship, complex family dynamics, some magic and a little danger will enjoy this one.
I liked the protagonist, Esme, from the start. She's one of those girls who just wants to keep her head down and get through high school as best she can. She's got a good head on her and good instincts. I also really liked her friend Janis and Esme's dad who was trying to raise a teenage daughter as best he could. Cassandra bothered me from the time she enters to almost the very end of the story. There were some other characters, but most of them were fairly one dimensional.
I was mostly curious on what the plot would be and the reasoning behind the girls' powers. Not all of it was explained, so there weren't a lot of details. You kind of have to go on blind faith here. It was interesting though, how things were presented (without spoiling anything I can't give much more than that). The ending definitely builds to a climatic ending with some action and a few twists. I'm definitely curious to see how things turn out in subsequent books. I can see the girls not quite sticking to the rules, especially with some parents involved in the outcome.
I just had a few qualms about the book. There were some really blatant comments and crude descriptions. Obviously a lot of it is the norm in high school, but I don't really want to have to read it in my books, especially in having to deal with it in real life too. At least not quite to the extent here, especially as it really had nothing to do with the story. There's also a lot of acronyms and labels (as an example, Esme's dad was stated as being nerdy for being a Tom Cruse fan and liking Dave Matthews), so depending on the audience they may not even know some of the references or might be offended by them (my daughter doesn't know who Dave Matthews is, but she does love Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible movies and she shouldn't feel like there's anything wrong with that). Sometimes it's dangerous to be so specific with your audience, particularly if you're attaching a negative connotation to a label or even labeling at all, and using slang too much.
In the end, was it what I wished for? Overall, I enjoyed the story. More so the friendship and family dynamics, as well as the second half of the book where it's fairly clean in content. The magic and the way the sitters' system works is interesting, and I'm looking forward to more details about how it all works as the series continues.
Content: Some crude and blatant gestures and references. Some swearing. Some violence.
Source: I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher through The Fantastic Flying Book Club, which did not require a positive review nor affect it in any way.
About the Author
I've written for Cosmopolitan, NYLON and Seventeen, amongst other magazines, and worked with brands including Urban Outfitters, Vans and Calvin Klein.
The Babysitters Coven is my first novel, but fingers crossed it won't be my last.
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Win a finished copy of The Babysitters Coven (The Babysitters Coven #1) by Kate Williams (US Only)
Ends September 25, 2019
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