Bewitching, by Alex Flinn

Bewitching can be a beast. . . .
 
Once, I put a curse on a beastly and arrogant high school boy. That one turned out all right. Others didn’t.

I go to a new school now—one where no one knows that I should have graduated long ago. I’m not still here because I’m stupid; I just don’t age.

You see, I’m immortal. And I pretty much know everything after hundreds of years—except for when to take my powers and butt out.

I want to help, but things just go awry in ways I could never predict. Like when I tried to free some children from a gingerbread house and ended up being hanged. After I came back from the dead (immortal, remember?), I tried to play matchmaker for a French prince and ended up banished from France forever. And that little mermaid I found in the Titanic lifeboat? I don’t even want to think about it.

Now a girl named Emma needs me. I probably shouldn’t get involved, but her gorgeous stepsister is conniving to the core. I think I have just the thing to fix that girl—and it isn’t an enchanted pumpkin. Although you never know what will happen when I start . . . bewitching.

 I waited anxiously for months for this book to come out. I was a fan of Beastly before the movie (which was terrible) and I loved all of Alex Flinn's reshaped fairy-tales. It was interesting to see where Kendra, the mysterious force behind Beastly originated, but I liked it better when her character was based in mystery. The short-ish stories interspersed, about the French prince and about the mermaid by Titanic were a little odd in my opinion, and certainly did not add anything to the story. I would have preferred to read them in a book of short stories, rather than in the middle of a novel which I want to get back to.

I was not terribly excited to read Emma and Lisette's tale, because like most people, I do not enjoy watching sweet, nice characters getting tortured, which I was sure would happen in this retelling of Cinderella. What was cool was how the story was switched and Cinderella was the villain, because as Emma pointed out, just because the stepsisters were ugly doesn't mean they were evil. It always annoyed me how it was just assumed they were mean. Emma's mom lives up to her reputation, and even though you can't really blame her, she still could have been nicer to Lisette when she first moved in. Is it just me, or is Lisette creepy? She literally tries to take Emma's life, even though adoring and innocent Emma was just a victim of circumstance. I used to like the name Lisette, but now whenever I think of it, the words "lying", "manipulative", and "thank goodness I don't know anyone like that" come to my head.

Speaking of messed up characters, Warner is a perfect match for Lisette. What kind of guy believes his girlfriend's stepsister over his girlfriend? I'll tell you what kind-the kind looking for trouble and to trade up. And he seriously believed that Lisette was going out with him because she cared. I hate to say this, but "Dude-it's called a mirror!!!!". The queen bee always has an agenda.

Back to the short stories stuck in the middle-was it just me, or was the mermaid one messed up? I mean, its cool that Alex Flinn isn't only giving out happy endings, but that one made me cry almost more than Titanic did. It was just so darn depressing.

5 stars.