I picked this up at the used bookstore for three bucks, so I can't really complain about the price. I knew nothing about the book, and I grabbed it because who wouldn't pick up a book called WITCH AND WOMBAT with a witch holding a wombat gracing the front?? A really adorable wombat, might I add.

Yeah, well, "don't judge a book by its cover" and all that.

The book is extremely dated (1990s, I believe), but the first two chapters had a quaint, if overdone, charm and sense of humor. However, everything quickly went downhill.

It is so boring; I have no idea how I finished it.

The entire premise is a psychic energy shortage that is poorly explained and even more poorly executed. Getting the kids from the "mortal world". Getting the kids from the mortal world into the magical realm is ridiculous. Even as a YA book, it's pretty bad. And while the characters don't necessarily buy in right away, it's still plain silly.

Speaking of characters, the witch is reasonably entertaining, if a little bland for large swaths of the book, threatening to turn people into this and that, the usual trope. The wombat is fantastic. The rest of them are one-note caricatures of what teenagers are perceived as being. The overweight guy? Well, he's a clumsy buffoon who likes to eat. The video game critic (who, incidentally, is 28 years old) is vain, has a superiority complex, and makes the dumbest critiques possible. The teen girl "has never been out of the city", likes to shop, and has a keen interest in "understanding college boys." The other guy is handsome.

They are never in any real danger, as is made clear at the beginning. While they do progressively find more and more potentially dangerous situations, the witch gets them out of everything. Sure, they have their character arcs, but honestly, you're never all that worried about them.

I feel "more and more potentially dangerous situations" may give the book too much credit, and leave the false impression there's some kind of action-packed role-playing going on here. Most of the book isn't that. There's a lot of resting, discussion about the different comfort levels of beds (or the ground), scenery descriptions, walking, eating, shopping... so much shopping early on.

You could read the first 5-7 chapters and then the last 2-3 chapters and completely grasp what happened in the book and how the character arcs played out, and you'd still be disappointed.

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Created Feb 29, 2024 at 7:20pm • Submit your own review...