Explore Unfamiliar Magic Curated By R.C. Alexander Formatted As Digital
is a lot to like in the book the characters are appealing and unusual,
Valerian and Callida have a daughter Desdemona who will be very powerful, Callida flees with Desi at birth, she fears that Valerian will use Desi's power to his own ends,
Twelve years later we have this story,
Desi is confused and angry with her mother who abruptly leaves her with her familiar, a cat with the lovely name, Devalandnefariel, The cat is changed into a human now called Cat so she can be a more effective protector for Desi in Mom's absence, This makes for insightful and humorous exchanges, There are lovely boys living next door one Cat's age, Bob intensely shy, and Jarrett, Desi's age who is perceptive, enthusiastic openminded and friendly, These boys are great friends to the girls, Desi uses her mom's absence to experiment with magic, With a normal witch this would not be a big deal, but Desi is very talented and unleashes more that she bargains for, Because of her wit and talent she can also cope with the situations she creates,
I liked the friendships, the perceptive observations and the family love that suffuses the novel,
By the end of the book the adults characters had fleshed out a bit and the reader is left with some hope that Val and Callida will be able to manage to work together for Desi's sake.
Kids will probably like the action and not worry about the missing motivation that I could deduce but I wanted more info up front, Perhaps kids would not have patience for that, . . This is one of those book that went by to fast and you didn't want to end! It literally made me LMAO! this is not something you read in the library.
Her cat becomes a human and tries to fit in, I really hope there's a sequel! This is a first novel, and fairly uneven, What makes the book enjoyable and worth the read are the parts with Cat as a human she's transformed from a witch's familiar into a human form to better protect the teenage daughter.
The author does a great job taking typical cat behavior and showing what it would be like if a human did the same thing:
"Would you like some salad, Cat"
"No, thank you.
I do not wish to throw up now, " Desi, teen witch, wants to learn more magic, but her mother is refusing to teach her much more than simple baby spells, When her mom runs off to deal with some unknown danger that turns out to be Desi's semievil warlock dad, who is still miffed that Desis mother left him and went into hiding, Desi figures she can now start to experiment on her own.
Cue wacky hijinks, at least until Desi's dad finds out where she is and attempts to win her over with a mix of actual fatherliness and crazed powermad ambitions.
The best thing about this fantasy is Cat, the witch's familiar turned from feline into teen girl so that she can babysit Desi while her mom is gone.
Cat, as a human, still thinks like a cat, leading to many amusing situations Alexander must have a cat at home to understand them so well and to do such a great job translating a cat's mind into a human's body.
She's a stylish character with a great voice and she narrates half the chapters Desi narrates most of the others, However, people around Cat react in totally improbable ways to her crazy behavior aside from Desi, of course, who knows what Cat truly is, undercutting the characters' credibility.
In fact, most of the characters, aside from Desi and Cat, are onenote and not very believable, especially the two boysnextdoor, who serve as love interests for Desi and Cat, respectively.
There are some cool magical elements like lawn gnomes that guard the house and get pissed off when Desi puts them in the closet but overall magic is kind of generic.
The two stories don't exactly mesh Desi learning magic is kind of Sabrinaesque, but the story turns dark and convoluted when her father begins a battle over merging the human world with the spirit demon world.
It's a weird tonal change that doesn't really fit with the characters and the rest of the book, And audience is tricky, too: this book is a little young for high schoolers because of Desi's narrative and a little old for middle schoolers because of Cat's narrative.
It's not a terrible book by any means, but it's uneven, I liked parts of it a lot other parts, I was scratching my head and wondering how this made it into the same book, Since this seems to be the author's first novel, I'll keep my eye out for the next to see how he develops as a writer, The cat remands me of one of my cats, all black and love sushi, Be just like her if she becomes human,
I didn't understand what the problem with Desi's father, Why did they need to get away from him Not everything was solve in the end,
However it is an enjoyable read and there can be a squal, I really liked this book and would recommend it to middle graders that enjoy a good magical comingofage teenage, that is, . . story. It was fun to see things from Cat's perspective, Also good for kids whose parents aren't together, because Desi has to face that, Really enjoyable read. Desi is a witch. And she knows she could be a great witchif only her mom would teach her any spells, Unfortunately, Desis mom is more concerned with keeping them safe and their abilities hidden,
When her mom leaves town under mysterious circumstances, it should be Desis perfect opportunity to explore magic on her own, But Desi has been left in the care of the most unusual babysitter of all time: her pet catalso her moms familiarnow transformed into a teenage girl named Cat.
And Cat has only three goals: Learn how to eat sushi with her new hairless monkey paws, get the awkward boy next door to pay for her sushi, and keep Desi out of trouble.
And that means no magic,
Yeah, right!
This hilarious and highspirited fantasy is perfect for cat lovers, embattled siblings, and anyone who yearns to find the magic in everyday life.
This was a wonderful book, Desi a witch in training is learning spells mostly from her mother's book of spells, When her mother leaves she turns the cat into a human to help take care of Desi, This is a fun book to read, I laughed a great deal between Desi's mistakes at magic and the cat trying to learn how to act like a human, Enjoyable! Such a cute book, Cat aka Devil is my favorite character, I love reading about animals turned to human and the hijinks they get up to, It was a really good book, I feel pretty bad for Bob lol I've been reading reviews of this book since it came out, I finally managed to snag a copy from my local library, I enjoyed it very much, but I'll admit that I did skip past a bunch of pages which I felt were slowing down my enjoyment of the book.
Twelveyearold Desi wants to learn magic from her mother Callida, who doen't want to teach it to her, So, Desi tries to teach herself using her mother's spell book, Then Callida turns the family Cat in to a teenager to babysit Desi, Weird behaviors occur and the plot gets confusing when Desi's real father comes along and the two parents fight witches and wizzards to try to protect Desi from a monkey who plans to kidnap her.
I did not really like this book and I tried to stop reading it twice, I think the author, R, C. Alexander, was trying to make the story funny, entertaining, and scary, For me, the story became too unbelievable and confusing and the events didn't fit together very well which left me confused and ready to give up.
In the book Desi is a teen witch who wants to know more about her magical culture, but her mother is very protective of her, and for good reason.
Together they move from state to state to countret to countrey to house to house to evade the mysterious man trcking them and as they use more magic it leaves a kind of magical residue and makes them easily able to be tracked down.
This book was preety good overall, I really liked it and I thought it was super funny, Though I could have done without some of the more random scenes, like hanging in trees, and snakes, long story/bookLOL
This book is about a girl, named Desi, who is a witch, one day her mom leaves her and turns her pet cat into a teenage girl, who starts dating the boy nextdoor at the mall and makes him pay for everything later, they find the mom's credit card.
It turns out her mom is on the run from a powerful wizard Desi's long lost father, who befriends Desi in an attempt to kidnap her.
This book is fine. A delightful story that kept me on the edge of my seat!
It was funny and sweet, and lots of fun to read! I really enjoyed the book.
I loved how he was able write like a cat was REALLY trying to learn about human kind, I love Cat, and Desi, and all of them but it was unclear on what familiars do, and how the spirit world works, and the four paths.
It really needs a second book because we don't know how the parents roles work out, what happens to the power of love and the drifting of the spirit world, what the forth path is, and what do demons do.
Oh, I finished this a while ago but I forgot to come back and mark it read and review it, I promise I will as soon as I get a chance,
In short, this is an adorable and fun book that anyone who loves magic and cats absolutely MUST read! Seriously, I laughed until I cried in parts because of some of the things
that Cat did.
I'll give it a proper review soon, but don't miss out on this one! There is a lot to like in the book the characters are appealing and unusual.
Valerian and Callida have a daughter Desdemona who will be very powerful, Callida flees with Desi at birth, she fears that Valerian will use Desi's power to his own ends,
Twelve years later we have this story,
Desi is confused and angry with her mother who abruptly leaves her with her familiar, a cat with the lovely name, Devalandnefariel, The cat is changed into a human now called Cat so she can be a more effective protector for Desi in Mom's absence, This makes for insightful and humorous exchanges, There are lovely boys living next door one Cat's age, Bob intensely shy, and Jarrett, Desi's age who is perceptive, enthusiastic openminded and friendly, These boys are great friends to the girls, Desi uses her mom's absence to experiment with magic, With a normal witch this would not be a big deal, but Desi is very talented and unleashes more that she bargains for, Because of her wit and talent she can also cope with the situations she creates,
I liked the friendships, the perceptive observations and the family love that suffuses the novel,
By the end of the book the adults characters had fleshed out a bit and the reader is left with some hope that Val and Callida will be able to manage to work together for Desi's sake.
Kids will probably like the action and not worry about the missing motivation that I could deduce but I wanted more info up front, Perhaps kids would not have patience for that,