Here’s something you should know about me: I’m a fan of children’s & young adult fantasy. The best is Harry Potter of course, but other great series are Fablehaven and Percy Jackson. This is my fun reading, my palate cleanser, my genre kryptonite, if you will. I prefer to listen to them as audiobooks because they make my commute so much better.

I’m still undecided about this series. It’s about a pair of siblings – the older sister Gwendolyn, who is a witch, and her brother Eric (who everyone calls Cat, which was hard for me to get used to because I consider it such a female nickname) who idolizes her. They are orphaned and sent to live in Chrestomanci castle with a distant cousin and his family, where nothing is as it seems. Gwendolyn doesn’t feel that her talents as a witch are being appreciated, and she begins causing all kinds of trouble.

I found this first book to be kind of slow and annoying, to be honest. Gwendolyn got on my nerves so badly that I almost couldn’t stand it. For awhile the plot seemed too simple and nothing much was happening, but there were glimpses here and there that more would come out later, and the story got so much better at the end that I’m inclined to give the next book a try.

Still, this one was just okay for me.