I'm on the fence about this one. 🤔
After finishing the book, I now know it's going to be part of a series. Originally, I had thought it would be a stand alone. Because of that, I really didn't like that there was not enough background information. As in, what makes someone a Sitter, how do they get into a coven, when/how/why is there a Synod that oversees everything, etc. There is way too little information. Also, completely dislike books that have "instinct" based combat/abilities. 🙄
The book had a good storyline, but it could have been better with a little more info and training. 🤷‍♀️

Worth A Look

This struck me as the perfect example of the sort of book you can love or just like, (probably not hate), depending on exactly what sort of mix you like in your characters, plot, writing style, and humor.

The setup is that Esme and her pal Janis have a babysitters club, but it's mostly just an excuse to hang out together as BFF's. When Esme starts to display witchy traits and powers, and a mysterious new girl suddenly wants to join the club, the whole Buffy the Vampire Slayer plot starts to roll into place.

I almost gave up on this twice, but I kept picking it back up because I liked Esme and Janis as characters, (sometimes), I liked the banter, (sometimes), and I liked some of the set pieces. And, I wanted to see where the whole shebang was headed and where it would end up.

The good parts turned, for me, on some of Esme's deadpan throwaways and Janis's often puckish sense of humor. The two had one of the easiest and most complementary friend relationships that I've found in quite a while. They're supposed to be seventeen, but this seemed much more tween than that. Esme has a great relationship with her Dad, and her insane, (SPOILER- or cursed?), Mom was a revelation. So that was refreshing. Scenes often project a bracing "attitude" that I admired. (In one scene the new girl, Cassandra, who is majorly cool and put together, walks into the school cafeteria, gets her crappy food, looks around at the socially complicated tables, shrugs, and dumps her tray in the trash and walks out. That's what I mean by attitude.)

This is a first book so there's a lot of exposition. I kid you not, the coach who explains being a sitter to Esme and Cassandra actually uses a Power Point presentation. This is a new one for middle grade fantasy, and I'm pretty sure the author included it ironically. Or maybe not. You can see why I'm conflicted here.

So, anyway, this had some fun bits, some huge plot holes, and generally upbeat energy. I mostly liked it, but that really did feel like a style and mood call.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

The Babysitters Coven is a ton of fun but I will say it read more like a middle grade than a YA. This isn't a bad thing but it did make it a little slower for me to read. The writing is witty and full of fun characters. I thought the story was on a little on the slow side, I think the next book will be more fun because there's less to set up in the story. I really loved all the Halloween references but I will say id didn't get and Buffy vibes. Well except for the few times they actually talked about Buffy.

Take The Babysitters Club, throw in a dash of magic and a heavy helping of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and you've got this book. Esme has been a babysitter forever but when she accidentally hurls a dodgeball at a bully in gym class and learns that she's not just a babysitter but a Sitter, tasked with protecting the world from the forces of evil, life gets a whole lot more complicated. And babysitting become a full-time job. Especially when she discovers that some kind of creepy demon is stalking the kids she babysits and up to some kind of mischief.

The first half of this book took a bit longer than I wanted it to to really get into the good stuff--the magic and the lore--but the second half really picked up. Overall, it's a fun, light ready about supernatural girl skicking supernatural butt. What's not to like?

Wow, I stan a girl like Esme. She's this powerful wich but also. she's normal. Esme still goes to school, still has those cringe moments every teenager has, and does know how to act around boys. I also love the fact that she loved clothes but still remains a badass. because girls can still do those " girly things " and still be badass. Same can be said to every girl in this book. They're all great role models for young girls.

The polt is also fun albeit compact. There's a great story here that blends modern life and fantasy well. there are mechanics of the fantasy elements of this story work and how they fit into the world. it just feels as though it all happens at once. making me really wish the book was longer

Fun! Unique! Absurdly funny!
The Babysitter’s Coven is anincredibly fun ride playing on the Babysitter’s Club with the major twist of modernism and magic.
🔮
Esme is a young girl who lives with her, has a semi-babysitting club with her friend, and visits her mom in the mental institution when she can. She’s pretty used to this. Then when Cassandra Heaven shows up, she starts noticing the weird stuff. Like, why do things move around her for no reason? And Cassandra wants to join the Babysitter’s Club? Too weird. So now she’s trying to figure out what’s going on and what Cassandra Heaven has to do with it.
🎱
This book really feels like a blast back to classics like Buffy, Heathers, The Craft, Halloween, and Babysitter’s Club. Like a fun mix of all of them. The aesthetics, the vibe, and the outfits! I really dug these, at the beginning I was struggling with the book, but when I started picture it playing out like the original Carrie movie, I found it’s true aesthetic.
🎱
This book is kinda awesome…not gonna lie. The main character Esme has a dry humor that I love and really seems to more or less like her life. It made her really relatable, I also babysat throughout high school, though not quite like her. I liked Cassandra and Dion too. I have to stan Mexican representation, always. I really loved Janis though, funny and exciting, I would have loved to be friends with her in high school!
🎱
The plot was great, though at times I wasn’t sure where it was going and it seemed kinda lost. It was cleared itself back up, the only thing I didn’t love was that it has a plot point, that makes sense, but it felt really abrupt and somewhat unoriginal. I forgive because it was doing its own take on classic stuff and had fun with it.
🎱
I really think that this movie benefits with an 70s/80s teenage horror, thriller, comedy vibe. Its not scary, but neither are 80s horror movies. I love this book for its fun style, wicked humor, and for its incidental blast from the past. I recommend you make sweet late 70s/80s/early 90s playlist to go with it!

Esme is a babysitter. She loves kids and along with her BFF Janis, she formed a sort of babysitters club. Then one night while she is babysitting she sees something that she just cant explain, Lord Voldemort trying to convince a child they they need to leave their house. Soon after Esme meets more friends. This leads her to the startling discovery that theres more to the world than she thinks, and she may just have magic at her fingertips.

This is a really fun first book and introduction to a new universe founded around The SItters, a group of high school aged girls that not only like babysitting kids but also seem to be the sitters for a portal to another dimension.

What I didnt like about this book:

I think the thing that seemed to stick out the most for this book, is that it seems to borrow very heavily from other books, tv shows, movies etc. The good part that is that Ms Williams doesnt seem to shy away from the fact that she is doing this, in fact there is more than one instance where she directly relates that what the girls are doing seems an awful lot like Buffy the vampire slayer. So overall not a bad thing to wear her inspiration on her sleeve.

There were also times in the book where I felt like it was dragging a bit to get to the plot. I wanted to see them training or getting to the monster hunting but this book seemed to be more about them just realizing what they were more than solving problems. There is a bit of that there as well but overall its a little light on that and heavier on what Esmes outfits are called.

What I liked about this book:

Well lets just start with the cover of this book. This is what really attracted me to the book in first place, the cover really is something special and a great picture that really sums up the world and the book itself in one image.

I did like the world building and the humor in the books as well, there are several parts where it is very amusing.

Overall a solid introduction into a new universe.

I would recommend this book to fans of Buffy, urban fantasy, harry potter, and just someone that would like a light fantasy type book read.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for the review

I was sold on the title and cover alone and this book did not disappoint.

Magic and quirky witty characters that were actually relatable made this such a fun read.

I would say this gave me more MG than YA feels but still a good story. The Buffy/Babysitter Club feels were strong and made me a little nostalgic. I’ll be honest that is exactly why I like this book so much.

I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in this series.

This was a ridiculously fun ride and I adore every minute of it. Those who loved the Babysitter's Club will love the homage and those who are new to it, will get an absolute kick out of this inventive and fun approach.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgally for review purposes.

This ones hard for me because while there were things I liked, there was also a lot that I didn't. Some things just felt forced or iffy.

OKAY here we go. First off, the cover is everything. It's arguably the best cover I've ever seen and I'm fully obsessed. I believe it's by an artist named Rik Lee and she knocked this shit out of the ballpark. When the book started I thought I was liking it but then I was like, actually I feel influenced to like it just because of how amazing the cover is. If this book had any other cover I would not enjoy it as much but that says a lot more about me than anything else 🤷

The characters were good. They were fleshed out and felt real enough for me. I did feel like Janis was painted to be disliked more than anything in the beginning, having our first interactions with her being a girl who can't keep a job she yelled out a customer’s "Peach Perfection order as a “white girl special with an extra entitlement boost.”" that was super cringey for me. I'm still cringing. But that being said Janis proved herself as being an amazing character, the set up to her was just not gr8.

The fashion described in this book was another positive though! I loved loved loved all the random outfit inspirations the girls had.

Buut then another negative was all the pop culture references. It beats you over the head with them. I loved Goblin King, but then we also have buffy, the craft, cher horowitz, mean girls, Voldemort, and more I can't think of right now. It got to the point where this felt more like a fanfiction than a separate piece of work.

The magic was cool, but the whole 'sitter' thing was hard to take serious.

So I don't know, it was good, I didn't love it, but hey that fucking cover tho 👌

Huge thanks for netgalley for giving me an early copy of this!

Before even reading, the initial description “adventures in babysitting meets Buffy the vampire slayer” was right up my alley! In the first couple chapters I immediately connected with Esme and her quirks, and she honestly felt like a REAL teenager. Not a book teenager who’s clearly overwritten and has a unrealistic dialogue. At some point though my love for this character started to dwindle: she became a little judgmental with other characters like “the jocks” and cheerleaders (although the cheerleaders were pretty crappy) and I just wasn’t expecting that turn. Not to mention when the love interest entered she became VERY self deprecating and kept going on and on about how attractive he is and how she isn’t good enough. It was pretty bad.

Despite that I was still able to push through but at one point it seemed very obvious that the author was trying very hard to distinguish this book from Buffy. Just throwing in plot points that were incredibly silly to differentiate the two. Overall it was a fun read but for the most part, it was just ok. I probably won’t continue with this series unfortunately.

3 stars for me.

Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
3.5 stars

This is going to sound paradoxical, but I think my biggest issues with this book were also the things that made it stand out the most. I could see why certain choices were made, but some things didn't pay off until the end.

The author uses a lot of teen language, like late 2010's slang, which can always date a book, and kind of turned it into a "How do you do, fellow kids?" Steve Buschemi thing at some points. Also seemed like she was going for a Buffy Speak thing which worked with the genre, a clear parody of the show. It is a parody, and it isn't 100% like Buffy, but there were a few things that just felt like a copy and paste of the show, and pointing out the similarities does not mean you are parodying them. The world building of the book, dangerously similar to Buffy, also came fairly late in the book, and was still vague by the ending. This, I think, was intentional, as it was really Esme and Cass finding their powers, and I assume they will explore the world of the Sitters, the Negative, its rule and leadership, etc., in the next books.

I wanted to love this book. I sounded just creepy and campy enough to be right up my alley. Although there were definitely aspects of it that I enjoyed, however, I came close to DNFing pretty early on. I am glad I stuck through because the writing got a little bit better, as did the story, as I continued reading.

I'll start with some of the issues I had with the book, so I can end on the more positive aspects.

The first thing that really annoyed me was the text-speak. Regardless of age or how often teens are texting, people don't actually say LOL or AF or any number of other abbreviations that were scattered throughout the book. That's perfectly fine for texting, but no one actually uses these acronyms when they are speaking. I'm not sure if the author meant for the reader to interpret them as actions or the full words, but I found myself getting annoyed each time a character actually said something along the lines of "I'm mad AF" or "That made me LOL"... It really just sounded like someone trying to be cool and failing badly.

Also, after finishing the book I had to go back and re-read the description to remind myself the age of the characters. The MC in this book is 17 years old, but in my mind she was around 14 or 15 in the book, tops, because she seemed to be written much much younger. The way she spoke and acted and her thought process were all much younger than her stated age.

Lastly, this book was much too heavy on the name dropping. Yes, I understand that the MC and her friend were very into fashion. However, if this book is to have a wide YA appeal, the designer name dropping might need to be toned down quite a bit. In general, a lot of things seemed inconsistent. It seemed that the characters were being written young and also text speak was included in a misguided attempt to gain appeal with younger audiences, while at the same time the amount of name dropping and label dropping are likely to alienate a lot of readers.

There were a few things I did like about this book though. In general, the story was cute and quirky. Very much Babysitters Club meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Although when I say that, I literally mean it is VERY MUCH LIKE THOSE series. As in, the two series were merged and there really doesn't seem to be much original content here. Okay, but I'm being positive here so let's try this again.

It was entertaining. After the first several chapters, the text speak and the name dropping subsided a bit and I was able to better enjoy the story. It's cute, it's campy, and I am glad I finished the book. Also, despite her extreme awkwardness (that was possibly played up a little too much IMO), I liked the MC. And, the cover is absolutely amazing and that's what made me want to read the book in the first place. Did you see that cover? LOVE IT! The pacing of the book was also really good. This was a fast and fun read.

At times this book read like MG, at times it read like YA, and certain aspects of it were relevant to neither category. I've also gone into most of the issues I had. There are a few others (relating to relationships, parents, and magic system) that I won't go into because I'm not here to write a novel about the novel. But, basically, I had some trouble rating the book in general. It was just cute enough to be enjoyable. So I settled on a high 2.5... 2.75 maybe? And I'm rounding up to a 3 because I don't have the option of half stars (can that please be a thing?).

I guess, if you like campy horror, and you don't take the writing too seriously, and you just ignore all the name dropping and text speak... you will probably enjoy this book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for this ARC! I am always down for a novel with a Chosen One, witches, or anything set around Halloween, and this book gave me all three! It had heavy Buffy the Vampire Slayer Vibes with The Craft undertones, yet made a lore all its own that was so original and fun!

We follow Kate, a babysitter. She and her friend Janis comprise the Babysitter’s Club, so named after the popular book series. There were more to the group, but as the other girls grew up and found high school interests, they drifted apart. Kate and Janis are the only two left, until Cassandra Heaven moves to their school. She pushes her way into the club and into Kate’s life, and we soon learn that the two have supernatural powers that neither one can explain.

They set out on a mission to find the reason for their powers and to solve the mystery of their parents: Kate’s mom is in an asylum, and both Cassandra’s mom and dad are dead. It doesn’t take too much snooping for them to trace Cassandra’s mom’s spells and odd occurrences back to an unlikely ally who reveals themselves to be the Giles to their Buffy. They show the two their responsibilities as Sitters, and just in time. There is an evil force at work that they must stop, and before innocents are lost.

I loved the magic usage in this, and how spells were easily cast with items you might have around the house! It felt so much more accessible rather than tracking down a Black Market seller of toad’s livers or the back tooth from a mastodon. The lore was also so inviting, with the inclusion of why the Babysitter trope is so important in horror movies. The Halloween setting gave it that spooky and unpredictable vibe, and let me wanting the smell of fake blood in the air! I can’t wait to see what awaits us in the sequel!

I never read the original babysitters books, so I can't say how this compares. But it definitely matches the Buffy vibe it aims for.

It took a while to get to the magic and action parts. The beginning did a good job on tree setting, plot, and characters. The MC, Esme, is very relatable and uses lots of pop culture references and texting lingo.

The story was really good. I liked all the magic and how spells worked and the whole secret Sitter society idea. I was very happy with the way the little romance went. It was an unexpected turn that really added depth to pretty boy's character.

Warning: I thought this book was geared towards younger readers. Like middle school age. But there's a lot of explicit language and dirty talk that should give this a PG13 kind of rating. I would definitely not give this to a kid unless they clean out certain lines. For a teen, maybe. But even so, those lines don't need to be there and can easily be whitewashed.

Altogether, I really enjoyed the plot and magic and the characters. I highly recommend this book for Buffy fans.

I received a copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was an interesting read, to say the least. If you're familiar with the Rebel Belle series by Rachel Hawkins then you might find the vibe of this story somewhat similar as both series feature a girl who was seamlessly living a somewhat normal life but then comes to find out they are involved in some strong magical element, which drastically changes the story.

When reading this, I did find the beginning to be slow, but I guess since there's a sequel the story has paced the story in a way where the biggest obstacle is saved for the next book. I did find the rate in which Esme developed her powers kind of inconsistent, as at first, she does things by accident, but then suddenly she becomes so skilled in an instant, even knowing what to do in dire situations. I wished there was more of a struggle/development in that department, but I guess since she's a Sitter she's naturally talented.

Aside from this, I found the characters themselves not that interesting. Most of them are bland and I just really didn't like Cassandra. She was just unnecessarily rude and just an overall jerk. She's not really a bad person, she just has a horrible personality. Even the secondary characters weren't that interesting, though some of them do get some development, but once the memories get wiped and all that "ish" happens, it's like all the development vanished and everything got reverted back to its old ways. It's a shame really. Yes, wiping people's memories to protect the identity of the Sitters is a good thing, I just think that it backfires for any development for those who are normal humans.

Overall, if you're looking for a story that involves a couple of unlikely girls teaming together and discovering they're witches then this is for you. I personally think it's a decent story that has potential, it just needs to work on character development because poorly written characters can put a damper on a story no matter how great it is.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book!

Esme Pearl's babysitter's club isn't much to talk about these days. Consisting of just her and her best friend Janis, I'm not even sure it can still be called a club. Still, there aren't many other options for 17 year olds in their town. Then the new girl moves to town around the same time strange things begin happening around Esme.

What happens next is an adventure of the mystical and self discovery. Secrets from both Esme and Cassandra's pasts will be revealed, and they may not like what they discover.

This book is a great blend of camp, teenage snark, and magic. Esme is highly relatable, and Janis is a great counterpart to her. Each of the characters adds to the story, without being too much or a distraction. The story is balanced, and paced well. This is the first in a series, and I can't wait for the next one!

Thank you to Random House for the opportunity to read #TheBabysitersCoven. It is a fun, easy read that pre-teens will enjoy. If you like the TV show Charmed this is a cleaner more water-downed version of that type of plot. A very entertaining start to a series that will make you wish magic is true.

The Babysitters Coven is a fun adventure for younger YA readers and fans of Charmed,

With so many protagonists focuses on being 'not like other girls', it's refreshing to have Esme and her friends who support each other and the legacies their mothers have left for them. This is the kind of representation we need more of in all genres.

The Babysitters Coven was SO much fun! If you love YA sprinkled in with some magic and “babysitters club” then you’ll absolutely devour this. Most of the characters featured in the narrative are well fleshed out and have their own personality rather than just being the side-kick or bad guy.

I can highly recommend this book and I will be waiting anxiously for the next book in this series!