The Blue Witch by Ricky Baxter

The Synopsis:

Growing up in the city of London, a young lady has reached her limit living in the hustle and bustle of the UK’s capital. Living with a shameless mother, adulterer father and working at a dead end job, Ophelia has just about given up on life in the big smoke. That is until she is transported to the magical world of Pecopia – a land where she is tasked with overthrowing an evil witch queen. However unlike most girls, who learn a valuable lesson of love and hope by the end of their journey – Ophelia’s only thought is one of revenge.

I received this book from the author for the purpose of this review. All comments and opinions are entirely my own.

Review:

“I wave my white wand and transport us to a central location–the place where I am to begin… my rampage.”

The premise of The Blue Witch intrigued me. I love crossover retellings and this one struck me as a cross between The Wizard of Oz and A Christmas Carol when I read the synopsis (and it really is!). Plus, how fascinating to have a protagonist actually turn out to be the antagonist in the story? I was hooked! However, it disappointed in several ways.

I enjoy short stories, very much, however, this one just didn’t do it for me. When reading the synopsis, it seems as if we follow Ophelia on her adventure to conquer the evil witch queen, but we don’t. We are dropped in the story– in chapter one– after she has finished her adventure, made her friends, and goes home. We have no idea who anyone is other than when she explains “___ was my dearest companion on this adventure”, and while that certainly got the point across, I just felt as if I missed out on everything–especially since the back of the book gave off the impression that we would accompany her on her adventure.

In addition to the lack of story that I was expecting, there was a lot of language that seemed unnecessary to me. Cursing doesn’t bother me in books most of the time, but the cursing in this particular story just came off as the writing of an angry teenager. And Ophelia is definitely an angry main character, but she’s supposed to be 23, not a hormonal 15 year old who likes throwing (extremely dramatic–world-ending) tantrums because she didn’t get her way.

The ending was also, hmmm, abrupt? It ended about like what one would expect from this type of story, but I wasn’t necessarily sure that it fit Ophelia’s character. It was a good ending for sure, but I didn’t like Ophelia at all (and we weren’t supposed to through the entirety of the story) so seeing her with a normal, happily-ever-after, so quickly, just left me feeling like it only ended like that because that’s what was expected of her, especially with her reluctance and attitude even after everything. I still felt like she was being fake, which brought us back to square one at the beginning of the story.

So overall, The Blue Witch just wasn’t what I was expecting and it left me disappointed at the end. So I only give it 1 out of 5 stars and don’t recommend it.