The Warlock's Curse

Think The Chronicles of Narnia mixed with A Series of Unfortunate Events and you have landed squarely on The Warlock's Curse. It is a quick read, targeting a young audience and does a good job of placing enough suspense throughout the book to keep you interested, but not falling into the trap of having the main characters jump out of the frying pan and into the fire constantly.
The two main characters are twins living, with their parents, in a dilapidated house they have recently inherited. Their parents are, unfortunately, suffering from a severe financial crisis which puts a strain on their relationship and the girls are forced to bear the brunt of their mom's dissatisfaction and their father's laziness. This creates an initial set of difficulties for the twins that will eventually lead into the fantasy adventure that helps to shape and develop them.
I will be very interested to see how the opinion of a younger reader differs from that of an older reader or a child's opinion vs their parent while reading this book. Throughout the book I was slightly distracted by the girl's bickering and attitudes towards each other. They could care deeply for each other one minute and turn to having spiteful thoughts and arguing small inconsequential details the next. But, having children of my own, it seemed very realistic (maybe why it was so distracting). The adults and parents also seemed to be friendly one minute and sharp and harsh the next, but again, being a parent I can understand why that would happen when children are asking "why?" in the middle of a very serious interaction or dangerous situation. I feel as though younger readers may see a bit of their own parents and teachers in these reactions and side with the twins about how "aggressive" or "irritable" the adults are, where I side with the adults becoming quickly frustrated with back talking and frequent disregard for rules. It makes me think back to my change in attitude watching The little Mermaid with my daughter wondering why I ever thought a 16 year old going behind her father's back to make a deal with a witch was anything other than the worst idea in the world.
My only issue with the book over all was the slightly crammed nature of the writing. I really felt like it was trying to cover too much territory in too short of a time span. This book could have been broken into maybe 3 books allowing for a slower and more developed pace, while allowing for a bit better world building. This could be due to the younger target audience, but I feel as though other book series have been able to build worlds at a better pace. There just seemed to be too many side characters and plots for the length of the book. I know future books in the series could easily go back to these characters and flesh out their back stories or interactions / histories, but they may have been better to keep off to the side all together .

Definitely a good middle grade reader. I have a feeling that my daughters will really enjoy this book. As for me, it really wasn’t what I was expecting. A very good concept and interesting characters though, just not my cup of tea. I feel like it was a bit rushed and lacked the time and space for proper world building. That said, excellent for middle school children.