3.5 Stars

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Characters **** I enjoy the different characters here. Janis is fun as are Esme and Cassandra. There are some other weird characters that didn't really work for me but I did like the three babysitters and their charges.

Cover ***** I mean, LOOK AT IT. It's perfect.

Pace ** This was one of those books that just went TOO quickly. And not like in an "I wish it had been longer because I loved it" way. I feel like from start to finish there just wasn't enough being gone over it just jumped from one thing to the next. However, we were 60% through the book before we even found out what the whole "babysitters coven" thing was. And I don't think it was meant to be a big reveal I just think it was held out far too long.

Plot *** While I liked the general plot of this, I do take issue with a few things. This book compares it's own plot to Buffy The Vampire Slayer and it's own characters to those from Mean Girls throughout the book. I take great issue with the whole relation to BTVS thing because it IS so much like BTVS. So much so that it kinda ruined the plot for me.

Writing **** I did enjoy Kate's writing style and the overall voice of the novel. I do plan to pick up the sequel.

Enjoyment *** I read about 60% of this at the end of July and I set it down due to life being a dick. I honestly only really picked it back up because I felt responsible to do so because it was an ARC. Otherwise, I don't know if I would have come back to it. I'm glad I read it, it was fun but I just didn't LOVE IT as I had expected. I do plan to read the second book and will even pick this one up to add to my collection and that may just be because of the awesome cover. Who knows.

The Babysitters Coven doesn’t have the story to back up its fun hook. A shallow series-starter that might have been more successful as upper-Middle Grade.

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Esme and her friend Janice need money. They can’t seem to hold down jobs, so to maintain their ludicrous (and expensive) lifestyle, they’ve stuck with their years-old “babysitters club,” even as their friends moved on to other pursuits.

Why can’t these two supposedly intelligent, competent teenagers hold down minimum wage employment? Well, besides the fact that their fashion obsession leaves very little room in their brains for concentration… they’re just awful. For no reason.

Janice, we are told in a representative anecdote, was fired from Jamba Juice for publicly embarrassing a customer, yelling to the whole store that her order was “white girl special with an extra entitlement boost.” Esme tells the reader that this isn’t Janice’s fault: “She was just too woke for corporate America.” At first, I thought that line must be tongue-in-cheek–obviously, Esme means that as a joke, right? But as I read on, it became clear that author Kate Williams is totally serious about her characters’ adorable superiority to other human beings.

Maybe I truly am too old to understand YA, but I can’t imagine that teen readers will take away from that story that these girls are offbeat, edgy feminists. The book solidly establishes them as shallow, spoiled girls who can’t see two feet past their own internalized misogyny and self-absorption. And that would be fine–it really would be! As I often say when I rag on unlikable teen characters, the unlikability isn’t the problem. Lots of teenagers are shallow and self-obsessed. It’s realistic and, I think, valuable to explore that kind of character.

But reading The Babysitters Coven never gave me the impression that Williams was writing that sort of character on purpose. Everything about the book signaled to me that I was supposed to think these girls were quirky and cool. If Williams was interested in exploring a deeply terrible kind of teen girl… wouldn’t she have included characters who could contextualize those flaws? Wouldn’t she have had those characters grow in any significant way?

This is a deep problem. The book wants to coast by largely on the strength of characters that its fun to adventure with. When Esme and company are cruel and unpleasant–and never corrected for being so–it seriously disrupts the experience.

Also interrupting the adventure is Williams’ palpably sweaty attempt to replicate teen speech. Williams is careful to include slang on almost every page–characters unironically say “AF” and OTHER.

She overlooks, however, the equally important knowledge of what to leave out of characters’ speech. These supposedly contemporary teens still filter their observations through the lens of 80s movie stereotypes. Even characters like Esme, who Williams wants us to believe are third-wave intersectional feminists, use strikingly outdated language. At one point, Esme calls her school’s cheerleaders “thugs” to communicate their physical strength and disrespect for rules.

My patience with The Babysitters Coven was already wearing thin by the time Williams introduced the non-specific forces of evil. The book takes forever to explain Esme’s powers and heritage, but I still didn’t fully understand the rules and stakes.

The publisher logline tells us that Esme realizes her “calling to protect the innocent and save the world from an onslaught of evil,” and the book maintains almost that level of vagueness throughout the book. In lieu of worldbuilding, we get lots of common nouns capitalized to become proper and even more fixation on characters’ experience and style choices.

Between the glacial pace, the lack of specificity, and the way Williams wouldn’t stop lampshading her borrowing from other franchises (“Wow, this is just like Buffy/The Babysitters Club/The Craft!” characters constantly note), I had to push myself to get through it.

Babysitters Coven might have been a much stronger book as an upper-Middle Grade story. Esme and her friends are highly immature youthful, and one could rewirte them as 13/14 with minimal changes. A few changes to the story would have to be made (eliminating some gratuitous swearing and sexual references, eliminating the out-of-place serious plotlines with adult subject matter), but I think those are changes that should have been made anyway. The book’s repetition of plot points and careful pace would be more at home in Middle Grade. Pitched to a younger audience, the story could be the fun Buffy x BSC romp it wanted to be.

I received an advance review copy of this title from the publisher in expectation of an honest review. No money changed hands for this review and all opinions are my own.

DNF at 25 percent. I wanted to go on with the book. It was too much.

This book didn't work for me at all. If it did for you I'm more than happy. Just to be safe , read on and please know these facts before choosing this one.


Our protagonist Esme Pearl is a 17 year old directly from a 1980 teen movie. Her snark and her character wanted me to throw myself out the window.

Why you ask?

Lemme say.

For example , she says her superpowers are not deciding what to wear so she could save a lot time. But EVERY SINGLE NIGHT she thinks about what she wanna wear according to her schedule. Like... What?

She supposedly wears glasses. When she has a concussion (when she falls down in a sidewalk , no mention of glasses?! As a person who wears them , I know it would be broken or atleast dented?! )

Saying she's stupid and reckless makes the actual reckless MC to shame.

With the plot , we travel every single day with the protagonist. Until something weird happens. Traveling with her and her high school banters were really exhausting. I couldn't read without rolling my eyes every single paragraph.

I haven't hated any character (including side characters) this much. Esme was just.. a brat. A really annoying brat . And ofcourse , we follow her PoV.

I really hate giving books low ratings. So I'm gonna give no ratings .

I received this copy via NetGalley for FFBC blog tour. This is no way has affected my opinions

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. I'm sad to say I had to DNF this book at 50%. I tried really hard to get through it and enjoy it but it felt like there was a whole lot of nothing going on. I liked the idea of the girls having powers, their moms were connected through some babysitters club thing but I felt like the plot could have been more exciting. The fashion part of the characters was also hilarious and I loved the dog! I hope other people are able to enjoy this book.

3 for neutral. This book looked so intriguing, but ultimately I felt it fell short and I could not keep interested enough to even finish. I think there are important topics, but not enough was happening to hold my interest completely. I am very moody; so if at a later date I’m able to enjoy I’ll update.

I think this book had a lot of promise! It has a great friendship and the look into the mental health of this family during a dark time is really important. It is not very plot heavy and I can appreciate the more intimate moments with the characters.

i was really excited for this (that cover! witches!) but honestly, it was...fine, i guess. i know i'm not the target age demographic for this book but it reads very young. i've read YA that is interesting and fun and doesn't feel quite so juvenile. it got a little grating (especially the text speak dropped in. do people really say "LOL" and "TBH" out loud?)

also, i was expecting/hoping it would be more witchy? i don't really know how to explain it; just not the vibe i was hoping for.

I wanted to like The Babysitters Coven. It has a fantastic, eye-catching cover with an illustration of a badass girl facing down some presumably nefarious multicolored clouds. I am always a sucker for a good cover design, so it breaks my heart when the book doesn’t live up to the cover.

The elevator pitch for The Babysitters Coven is The Babysitters Club meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve never read The Babysitters Club, but I feel like you don’t have to read those books to understand what they’re about. Buffy, though, is something that I obsessed over to the point of distraction a few years ago, and I’m always game for stories that play around with those tropes.

The book starts off well enough. The narrator, Esme, is a snarky misfit of a girl who meticulously plans and documents her daily outfits, curating clothes along thematic or referential lines. She runs a local babysitters club with her best friend Janis, another fashion plate. She lives with her dad and a flatulent dog named Pig, and the only real black spot on her life is the fact that her mom is almost catatonic and lives in a mental institution. The snarky narrator is a stock character in YA fiction, but Esme lands a few solid laugh lines early in the book and I highlighted one or two passages.

Esme’s life is fairly normal until the day that someone tries to kidnap one of her babysitting charges. If that wasn’t enough to freak her out, Esme starts to realize that she might be able to move things with her mind. Everything comes to a head when a mysterious girl named Cassandra asks to join the babysitters club and Esme finds out that she might not be the only one experiencing unexplained supernatural events. Further complication matters is Cassandra’s smoking hot older brother, Dion.

I started reading this book on May 10th, 2019 and didn’t finish it until August 21st, 2019. That’s a good three months and change. In the intervening time, I finished nineteen(!) other books. For whatever reason, I liked the book enough to want to keep reading, but I never seemed to make much progress until the last week or so when I decided it was time to power through and finish it. That said, when I finally got into a rhythm reading the book, I liked it less and less.

One of the biggest problems with The Babysitters Coven is that the pacing is deadly dull. After Esme and Cassandra discover their shared supernatural experiences, they noodle around without any clear goal for more than half of the book. The discover a written guide to basic magical powers, but they don’t receive an explanation for their abilities and responsibilities until past the halfway point.

When Esme and Cassandra finally meet someone willing to give them some guidance, their new mentor mostly serves as an infodump who speaks in cheesy jargon before disappearing for the rest of the story. The magic system seems ill-defined and without any real weight or consequences, but after the characters play with magic early in the book, they neglect to use any of their more complex powers during climactic scenes.

Williams jams most of the plot and action into the last quarter of the book, where everything falls apart and then resolves itself in short order. Esme and Cassandra don’t receive much in the way of training or information before they face a more serious threat, and then everything is neatly wrapped up in only a handful of pages.

To return to the subject of the elevator pitch, The Babysitters Coven is fully aware of its pop culture precedents. The Babysitters Club and Buffy are both name-dropped in the story, among other pop culture, as if lampshading the shared tropes will make it more acceptable.

I think it’s an interesting choice when speculative fiction interacts with some version of our real world via pop culture, but it has to be skillfully done so that the author is interrogating those tropes instead of just cataloging them. I’m sad to say that The Babysitters Coven is not that skillful.

I went into THE BABYSITTER'S COVEN with high hopes, as the idea of snarky and snappy teen girls with powers is always going to appeal to me. Especially since this book takes influence and inspiration from one of my favorite series as a kid, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB. For the most part, I found a good deal to like about this book. I liked Esme as a protagonist, as I found her to be realistic enough that she read in a believable way. I also liked her BFF Janis, and thought that their friendship was really fun and reflected a healthy teen girl friendship without the 'drama' that some stories like to highlight. I also liked that Williams has a very deliberate idea of the world and magical systems that she wants to build, and that she is looking to make unique mythologies within the world. There were a few weaknesses for me, however, and the first was that our other protagonist, Cassandra, didn't feel like she really grew or expanded beyond 'mysterious cool girl'. Even as Esme got to know her, I didn't feel like Cassandra really grew into our second main character. Along with that, a lot of this book was spent building up exposition, and a lot of the conflict and actual drama fell to the wayside until it was too far into the book. By then, the confrontation and conflict felt rushed. And finally, it did border a bit towards the 'aggressively quirky' with some of the characters, kind of like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER but amped up a few degrees. I'm sure that it will work better for the target audience, but I didn't have as much patience for it, and it makes me think that this series (as there is at least one more book happening) isn't one that I will seek out as a priority as time goes on.

When all is said and done, I think that THE BABYSITTERS COVEN has some promise, and I could see it getting a fanbase and a devoted audience. Teens looking for witchy readings should definitely check it out!

I really wish this was a movie because I would watch it all the time.

I love the relationship between Esme and her friends, and between Esme and her family. Her fashion savvy and horror movie love is a great focus on the hobby side of teens we don’t often see. Rather, sometimes they’re mentioned and never revisited, but with Esme they really feel loved in.

I don’t know as any part of the story felt like a twist to me, but it also didn’t really need to. Some books are just a fun ride. Very much interested to see where we go from here.

Thanks to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. It had a great story and I liked the characters a lot! Esme and Janis were quite the pair! I loved the outfit names! I looked forward to what they would come up with next! It was a twist on a babysitting story, I found it keep my attention the whole way thru! Finding out Dion was well an idiot kinda sucked up it made up for it with total bada$$ chicks kicking butt!
I would definitely recommend this book. It was quick read and I hope there's more to the story of esme and her mom!

The Babysitter's Coven is just a fun read. Is it the most perfectly written book? No. But it was really enjoyable and I would recommend it for anyone who likes The Babysitter's Club, Adventures in Babysitting, The Craft, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I laughed out loud a lot throughout the book.

Esme is a babysitter. She only has one real friend, Janis. When they were younger, they decided to start a babysitter's club with two other girls. But they left it and now it's just Esme and Janis. I loved their friendship and Esme's babysitting stories. And then there is the fashion. Both girls love fashion, so they plan outfits every day and name them. Both girls shop for vintage stuff and find these amazing deals. Some of the outfits sounded so cool. I wish I could see them, but could picture them pretty well.

When Esme is babysitting Baby Satan, Kaitlyn, something really weird happened. First, Esme couldn't get into Kaitlyn's room. Once she finally got the door open, Kaitlyn was gone. Esme found her on the roof and had to get her back in. Kaitlyn said a man with sunshine fountain hair, marker eyes, and sparkly clothes with ruffles took her. Esme just assumed that Kaitlyn's mom let her watch Labyrinth since she just described David Bowie. It did bother Esme though. She truly does care about the kids she watches, even when they are a bit evil.

A new girl shows up at school, dropped off by a hot guy. This was a big deal since the town rarely gets new neighbors. Cassandra doesn't really hang out with anyone, but one day, she approaches Esme. She asks about the babysitters. Esme thinks it's odd and Janis doesn't trust her. But they let her come over and take a job. During this time, Esme gets to meet the hot guy. He is Cassandra's older brother, Dion. She crushes hard and they spend a bit of time together. Shortly after this, Cassandra finally tells Esme why she wanted to join the sitters. She found a note and book left by her dead mother that told her to find the babysitters. That was it. She had a picture of her and her mom along with Esme's mom and Esme. Esme's mom had a break from reality and lived in assisted living. She rarely spoke and didn't make any sense. She did steal random items for her collection. So Esme doesn't know much about her, but knew her mom was a sitter, too.

Esme starts to move things without touching them when she is really emotional. Cassandra's moms information helps her realize that she has powers. And the book was a book of spells using random items that she could pick up anywhere. Cassandra has a power, too, and they slowly learn about what they are. Cassandra wants a lot of power and it goes to her head at times. Esme mostly wants to control it, learn more about her mom, and hang out with Dion.

I also have to mention Esme's pitbull, Pig. I freaking loved this dog and was thrilled to read about her throughout the book.

When a girl does missing while Esme and Cassandra were watching her, they need all the help they can get to stop whoever it was.

There were so many pop culture references that I really enjoyed throughout the book. All the fun little "extras" made the book stand out to me. I gave it 4 stars. Thank you to the publisher for my review copy.

Warnings for anxiety, assisted living, parental death (not on page), kidnapping, bullying, demons, offensive jokes (mostly told by teenage boys), and a bit of sexual talk (by those teenage boys). There is also mention of inappropriate contact with students by a coach, but that didn't actually happen.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an EARC of The Baby Sitter’s Coven! I surprisingly enjoyed this book! I went into it thinking it was going to be just like many witchy YA books as of late, but it was far more enjoyable. It’s not the best witchy YA fiction out there but I would suggest it to a YA reader! The banter between characters was very reminiscent of the banter between Buffy and her friends in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was quite funny at some points! There are a few things I did not jive with, which was the characters. I just did not feel connected to them at any point. The plot fell a little flat at some points for me also, but overall a fun read!

THE BABYSITTERS COVEN hit me right in the 1990s-kid feels. It was a journey down memory lane that I quite enjoyed. I thought it would be a dark satire, but it isn't a heavy book or is it as dark as I thought it'd be. Personally, I think that was a missed opportunity. There was some dark moments, but it was more for shock/surprise than a consistent theme. Esme's humor, however, kept the book afloat and kept me turning the pages. I think this book is a little too young for older teens, but perfect for tweens. There's a crucial scene at the beginning of the book involving a car and bathroom humor. It's a funny scene, but I think tweens would appreciate it more than say a junior or senior.

It was a very atmospheric read. I'll definitely be purchasing this for myself when autumn comes. What I like most about this book is that it doesn't take itself seriously. So, I didn't take it seriously that way I didn't set myself up for failure because I really wanted to enjoy this book. To me, it was a guilty pleasure that feather-tickles your nostalgia if you grew up with the classics like Babysitters Club, Buffy, and Charmed.

The prose was relevant and the pacing was kind of on the slow side, but all in all, I enjoyed the book.

I think this book was outside of my target demographic. Some of the writing felt a little clunky, and it was hard to move past. I also think the paranormal elements were a little weak and it wasn't exactly what I expected from witchy vibes. I had a hard time connecting with the main character as well.

*thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC for an honest review*

2 / 5 stars

Honestly, I don’t think I’m the target audience for this book. The main character seemed so basic and like the only thing going for her was everything that happened with her mom and the fact that she’s a babysitter. I couldn’t feel the main character or who she was. All I saw was reflections of who she was according to her friends, school mates, or her father. Also, the character that gets all the witchy stuff going is so annoying. I really just can’t cheer her on or want to see her in the book itself. So I’m bouncing, leaving a Goodreads review and moving on with my life. Good luck to you my dear book. Just because you weren’t for me doesn’t mean you can’t be it for someone else!

5/5 ⭐️
This was so good!
I love anyth To do with witches! And adding the babysitter aspect is pretty cool as well.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
The Babysitters Coven is the first in a series that follows Esme as she discovers that not only does she and new girl Cassandra have special powers but they are part of a select few chosen to guard the world from evil. They are... the sitters.
Esme and Cassandra are interesting, fun characters with general, witty banter. (Best friend Janis is the gift that keeps on giving and did not get enough appreciation, she is the true MVP.)
Sounds like a fantastic and fun read and for some it most definitely will be but it took well over half the book for anything to really happen. The book really drags in the beginning and could have had more set up for what is going on in the background. There could have been more hints or something to keep me interested. When it really does start in on the action it just keeps on going until it hits a brick wall that is an ending that isn’t really an ending because, this is the first in a series.
Esme is a smart capable teenager who is really, really into fashion, and as someone who is not the talk of it and description of outfits got a little old and tired after the first couple times. Cassandra is a take no bull kind of character, the kind who stands firm in front of people and yells “you’re not the boss of me” which I like, no lie. Maybe it’s my age though but she could have done with learning tact though.
Part of my overall, personal issue with the book is it is first person, which is my least preferred pov in a book so there is that.
The book is fun enough and there is potential, hopefully the second book will get more of that.

I was really excited for more witchy ya books but this just wasn’t what I expected in any way and it ended up being really disappointing.

The writing is clunky and yes, I know this is a paranormal/fantasy, but it was super unbelievable at times and made me cringe with the exaggerated slang.

The premise is that Esme has powers and meets a new girl at school who shocker ALSO has powers. They find out they both come from a long line of “sitters” and have to save the world.

It’s cute in a way and reminds me a lot of Buffy which the synopsis boasts. The thing is though, it just wasn’t good. It was cheesy and mostly a headache to read. While I am sympathetic towards Esme I also could not stand her at the same time.

Apparently this is part one of a series so maybe the next book will be better. Points to the super cute cover and also Esme’s dog Pig. The true hero of the series.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

The Baby-Sitter's Club meets Sabrina the Teenage Witch in this funny, thrilling read, just in time for Halloween!

There's not much to do in Esme Pearl's small Kansas town, and the only thing to talk about is football (which Esme would prefer to not, thank you very much, Dad). Fortunately for Esme, her nights are rarely boring with a best friend like Janis and her gig as the best babysitter in town. But when weird things start happening after her seventeenth birthday, Esme starts to worry that she's going insane--just like her mom. But when a new girl named Cassandra Heaven shows up at school and is desperate to join Esme's small (read: two person) babysitter's club, she doesn't think too much of it.

But then things start to get even weirder. Especially when Cassandra shows Esme a note her deceased mother left for toddler Cassandra: Find the babysitters. Does it have something to do with the fact that Cassandra can make fire appear at will? Or with Esme's own strange incidents? And what exactly does it mean to be a Sitter in this town?

A homage to shows and movies about teenage girls with magic powers taking charge as well as all the well-loved babysitters of fiction, "The Babysitters Coven" is a fantastic first book in a series. Wonderfully atmospheric and spooky in all manner of setting--place, season, mood, etc.--and often a little scary, Williams has crafted a tale of mystery and intrigue, with surprises around every corner. I eagerly await book 2 and the return to the adventures of the Sitters.