Book 13: Witch and Wizard by James Patterson

James Patterson is the type of author that pretty much has everything he writes go NYT Bestseller. And so far, the few things I've read by him have honestly not lived up to my expectations. He also seems to do a lot of joint projects. Take this book for example. It's got someone else's name there in small print. Gabrielle Charbonnet. Who the heck is that? How much of the book did she write? The book is told from two different first person points of view. First, there's Whit, the seventeen year old football player who is also a wizard. Then, there's his sister Wisty (Wisteria) who is younger and seems to be more powerful. Oh and she's a witch. Now, if Patterson wrote the boy parts and Gabrielle wrote the girl parts, then let me just say that Gabrielle wrote far more of this book than old James did. And yet her name is teeny tiny in comparison. I guess everyone is free to make their own choices when it comes to what and how to write. But let me just say this: I'll be damned if I'm going to co-write a book with someone famous, do most of the work, and then have my name be in tiny print on the cover. Screw that.

Okay, so now that my little tantrum is over, I guess I should actually talk about this book. Did I love it? No. Was it okay? Sure. A young witch and wizard, who have no idea that they even have any powers, get arrested in the middle of the night by the New Order, a newly elected government. They are taken from their family and thrown into a jail with a bunch of other kids and have to figure out why they have been taken and what's up with these new crazy powers they have. Wisty can make flames shoot out of her body and Whit seems to be able to freeze time. As the book goes on, they must find a way to escape and reunite with their parents, and they must also learn to control their new powers.

It was a deceptively short book. It looks longer than it really is, because each chapter is only made up of 2 or 3 pages. That leaves a whole lot of white space at the beginning and end of each chapter. The short chapters certainly make it easy to keep saying, "Okay, just one more chapter, then I'll go to sleep." I wouldn't say this is a brilliant story, and I'm definitely not left eagerly awaiting the second installment, but it was alright. I don't know that I'll read the next book when it comes out. The characters didn't really hook me in to be honest. But, I won't be surprised if they decide to make a movie out of it. It's James Patterson after all.