Witch World - Christopher Pike

Now this book took on a theme I hadn't really read before. I usually read books about the supernatural because who doesn't want to escape from reality from time to time. The main character, Jessie, and all of her friends have recently graduated high school. The main setting of the book is in Las Vegas, where the entire senior class has agreed to spend their first weekend as graduates. Jessie's ex-boyfriend, Jimmy, tags along with her group as planned by Jessie's best friend Alex, so that they can work things out.

Jimmy reveals to Jessie why he broke up with her out of the blue and stopped talking to her. Jimmy's ex-girlfriend, Kari, became pregnant and they had a baby boy named Huck. When Jessie asks why he is there and not with Kari he states Huck passed away 4 days after he was born. Jessie feels bad for Jimmy but is still mad for not including her in his reasoning for leaving and she storms off with Alex to start their night of fun.

Skipping ahead in the story some Jessie meets Russ who cryptically tells her to find him when she does not know what else to do. Jessie is later kidnapped and locked in a meat freezer until she passes away. When she wakes up she is in Witch World, a world that runs parallel to the real world. Jessie, now known as Jessica, finds out she is part witch, and she now is able to control herself in both worlds. In Witch World Jessica finds her and James (Jimmy) have a baby girl, Lara. Witch World and the Regular World share events with one another but sometimes those events don't always match up. Hence, Jimmy having Huck and James having Lara.

Lara is an extremely rare powerful baby with all 10 of the known witch genes. Now a story needs a bad guy so here is where that comes in. The bad group, the Lapras, kidnap Lara in hopes to turn her evil. Long story short it doesn't work. Jessie is tempted by evil only to have Jimmy, yes Jimmy not James, help her through it. She overcomes temptation... this time. Witch World II, Black Night, comes out December 2, 2014 and I am certainly interested to see what direction Jessie takes.

The main things that bothered me in this book was that these kids are all newly 18 and have kids themselves. It is not exactly promoting a good idea to young readers. I get it is just a story but it was weird none the less that Jessica's father was totally cool with her having a kid at 18 and even helped the Tar push her and Jimmy together. The only other thing that was a tad bit odd was that turns out all of Jessie's closest friends have the Witch Gene. It is lamely explained in the book as people who have witch genes and don't know it are often drawn together...

The story line was very good and the dialect was easy to read and believable for someone who is 18. I like that the book for the most part gives you closure on the main characters and even some of the back characters. They didn't disappear like in some books once the story gets going.

Bound to You - Christopher Pike

Bound to You by Christopher Pike is two of Pike's books published together, Spellbound and See You Later.

This book honestly took me forever to finish because Spellbound just did not captivate my attention at all. The book is about a group of friends in high school who find out their one friend is a monster who kills people. That is all fine and a plot I am used to reading. The problem I had with the book is that everyone is described as breathtakingly hot and extremely athletic. Of course our main character is a football cheerleader who dates the quarterback of the football team. All of the kids driving amazingly fancy cars and have nice big houses up in the mountains. Oh and their parents, they don't mind the kids staying out all night long or anything. The main characters parents even hide in their room so their son can have a girl over at 1 in the morning. The whole premise just frustrated me.

See You Later is a whole different story. I loved this story and found myself not able to put the book down once i started it. This is about a boy who meets this girl Kari, and eventually gets her help in getting a date with a girl he really likes. There are a few plot twists I don't want to ruin because wow this story took crazy turns. The ending leaves you sad but satisfied.

If you can find these books separately, which is how they originally were published, just skip Spellbound.