First things first, I absolutely loved this audiobook. The narrator was super good, and it was a lot of fun to listen to her.

The cover of this book as well as it being about a magic school had me interested in this book right away. We follow Hasani, who tries to be a YouTuber and then finds out she has magic. She's send to an expensive summer camp to learn magic, and this is where most of the story takes place.

So, I expected this to be a book about Hasani learning how to use her magic. With, you know, magic classes (to be fair, so did she). Yet that's not really what this book felt like. Rather than the magic, we get a lot of rivalries and mean girls, and just general girl hating for no reason. And I wasn't really a fan of that.

Hasani is very self-centered, which at times gets a bit annoying. There is some character development near the end, but it was more a sudden complete change for the better than gradually getting better over the course of the book. I would have liked to see/feel her grow up, rather than just have her be one way on this page and suddenly mature the next.

Which means my biggest problem with this book is the pacing. Some things that I feel are important happen super quickly (like Hasani realizing and learning from her mistakes), while other things that don't seem as important (the competitiveness for no reason) takes main stage.

This was still a very fun read. The concept was fun, and having a girl trying to be a youtuber felt fresh. Hasani had a lot of personality. I do feel like other characters didn't get as much characterization / much characterization at all.

The plot is a bit predictable, but overall I did enjoy this book.

This book was a wonderfully written fun comming of age story. I loved how the author weaved a world that celebrates black girl magic! I loved seeing how the flowers and nature magic had affect on our characters. I really think this is a great world for young readers to be challenged and to question who they are!

Wildseed Witch is a fun middle grade read about a young witch named Hasani. Hasani's goal in life is to become a YouTuber with a massive fallowing. She wills her magic into her YouTube channel, and learns that all magic comes with a price.

The story is very eclectic. The author does a good job creating Hasani’s heritage so that everyone reading can see her history. The author talks about Internet and how it can affect personal image. They talk about adult relationships, and how complicated marriage can be. There are a lot of side stories that the author is trying to tell along side Hasani’s magical teachings. Some of the storyline I do not believe will hold up overtime, and will become outdated.

Audiobook notes: The narrator is great. She knows how to put in the right inflections so that you can imagine that Hasani is talking to you.
Chapter 2 ends abruptly

This was an enjoyable middlegrade read.
The MC is interesting and real with her feelings of confusion and insecurity.
The witch aspect adds enough fun and blunders to make it even better.
I do think the author tried to pack too much into the story though.
Hasani discovering she is a witch and her development at the school was more than enough to drive a book.
The youtube side story and conflict between parental units pulled me from the witch driven aspects I was really enjoying. As a result the story went on too long.
With this already going to be a series, it 100% could have been broken into two books to allow for more focus on each storyline.
The narration was stellar and I am totally picking up the next book despite all that.
Much love to NetGalley and RB Media for my DRC.

Creative, engaging, entertaining, magical, and enjoyable. I appreciated the mini lessons along the way. It incorporated some social media drama with some fantasy. The characters were realistic and relatable.

The story manages to be equally enchanting, relatable, funny, heartbreaking, and hopeful.

Throughout the book we see the MC, Hasani, cope with her real world problems as a teen as well as her otherworldly challenges with balancing her newly discovered magic.

In my opinion, the author mastered this middle-grade novel in a way that touched my heart and reminded me of my own life at that age. Such a feat proved to me that any one of any age could pick up and be charmed (wink wink) by this story.

I'm very much looking forward to the future of this series, and the growth of the wildseed witch that I never stopped rooting for.

I'm not sure how to rate this because I didn't really enjoy reading it. I loved the idea of it: the New Orleans/Louisiana magic, the all Black girls witch academy, the magical flowers being linked to their magic. I didn't think there was any way I couldn't love it.

But the main character, Hasani, was really hard to like, even after she goes through her growing pains and learns her lessons, there's barely any accountability for the grownups in the story, and some things aren't even mentioned, like why the school lets a "green" witch in if they're going to completely leave her in the lurch and let her make faux pas, and act as if she should be punished for it. Hasani's obsession with social media and likes is somewhat addressed but not really in a way that demonstrates how harmful that type of thinking can be to young kids.

The narrator was also difficult for me to get into; she sounds a lot older than the character is supposed to be and it was very distracting. There were also a lot of sensory things that were difficult in general for me, like an extremely squeaky voice or drawn out words that fluctuated in volume--the squeaky voice is obviously part of the story so that's probably not the narrator's fault, but if anyone else has sensory issues, I'm sure it was/will be difficult for them too. She did do a great job with the accents.

Thank you Netgalley and RB Media for this audiobook ARC.

A very modern take on a young girls life. Hasani is the top youtuber of her age, parents are split up with a new step. Mother looming in, and the discovery that she has magic in her veins throws some really hard life choices her way.

This book will be big with all the young little girls out there that love a bit of fantasy. A really good read with loads of little teaching moments.