I loved this! I knew I was going to like this book as in general this is right up my alley and I was right. I really liked this. I liked our main character and the supernatural elements were great. This is definitely one I plan on recommending at work and to all my bookish friends. (Plus she has an adorable giant dog)

Wow.

This book was so good! So much more than I was expecting.

There is a heavy supernatural component, one that comes with no explanation what so ever. Ultimately though, I would say this story is about realizing some harsh truths, and the true friends who are there to get you through it. Many times I wanted to smack Katrell on the head and say "stop it, you're being stupid", but I get it, love is blind.

*Thank you to the publisher for this eARC.

I loved the concept and the execution. It can be difficult to write a main character that you both want to root for and smack over the head and say "Stop it, stupid!" Katrell's desperation and her twisted reasoning were portrayed extremely well - my heart really hurt for her. Absolutely fantastic and gritty, I would highly recommend to anyone who watched Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and thought, "What about the kids who can't go to a fancy school?"

I received a copy of this novel as an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Any and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Katrell, for as long as she has lived, has had the power to bring ghosts back to talk with loved ones. One day, her power twists into the ability to bring back the dead to life. Katrell sees it as a chance to finally help her family thrive. However, what happens when this new power twists for the worse?

I warn you, please look at these trigger warnings before reading this book. I didn't research it ahead of time nor was it included in the document of the story itself. Therefore, when I read it and one of my biggest triggers happened in the first 10% of the story, it kind of threw off my whole experience. That being said, the topics covered are EXTREMELY heavy. Jessica Lewis doesn't hold back with how brutal and tragic Katrell's home life is, especially when it comes to her mom's boyfriend and her mom's lack of action and defending her boyfriend. It unfortunately is something that does occur in daily life, but everyone chooses to ignore it.

On top of that, we see its heavy repercussions on Katrell herself. She tends to be violent and even though she has her family's best interest in heart, she still gets betrayed by them every single time. And at the very end when everything hits the fan, she still feels like she has to defend her mother. As Lewis mentions in the beginning of the story, she has dealt with something extremely similar to what Katrell deals with, including homelessness at one point. I personally have never dealt with these things beside for the emotional abuse, so I can't speak to its accuracy in this context.

The plot was good. Typical case of new powers gone wrong. I wasn't a fan of how we immediately start the story with her using her original powers and then 2 chapters later her power twists into something else entirely. A part of me wishes that we got to see more of what her power was and slowly see it shift into something bad. Then when Katrell used her power more and more to bring people back, I liked that we saw her change with it. However, I can't say much else about the people she brought back. You could kind of tell from the beginning that something wasn't right and stayed that way for a bit until like a decent way through. As a result, the pacing felt off and the mystery not as developed as I would have liked it, since some other things are kind of just brought up and never fully explained.

In terms of characters, I had an extremely love hate relationship with Katrell. She was so oblivious to what was going on half the time, temperament issues, and greedy. But also caring to the core. I know that most of these traits come from living in her toxic household, but still causes for some unease reading from her perspective. I loved Will though, and her family. I kind of wish we saw more than just a friendship blossom between Will and Katrell, but with the ending it makes me feel weird thinking that.

Bad Witch Burning is a fast-paced story that you can finish in a day, but felt just a tad underdeveloped.

CW: gore, physical violence against a minor, emotional manipulation, death of an animal, physical and emotional abuse, foster care, gun violence.

First and foremost I would like to thank the publisher Delacorte Press and Penguin Random House Canada for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis. This book is available 8.24.21!

This YA urban fantasy has such an interesting and unique premise. Katrell talks to the dead through letters as a way to earn an income, but it isn’t enough to support her unemployed mother and current boyfriend… until she accidentally raises someone from the dead. Katrell navigates through a world of dark magic to avoid her life of poverty and the cost that it comes with when meddling with life and death, including risking her physical health with each resurrection.

Katrell is a strong, fierce black girl with even stronger powers and I really enjoyed her character development. I connected with her life experiences and what she had to overcome in her life. Her friend Will brought the story together with their perspective and willingness to stay by Katrell’s side even when she didn’t make the best of decisions.

The development and pacing of the story held some challenges, including repetition of the storyline, but the character development is the heart of this story. The fears related to the cycle of poverty, daily survival, foster care, and entering the system is written with such power that it will evoke multiple feelings for the reader.

Thanks again to Sam Devotta at Penguin Random House Canada and Delacorte Press for an early copy of this book!

I felt sorry for Katrell. Her mom and her mom's boyfriend were terrible. I really liked this book but I was expecting it to be more supernatural and, instead, there was more of a focus on the contemporary part of the story. I think if I knew that going in, I would have liked it more. I would recommend this for anyone that likes magical/supernatural contemporaries.

There is a lot of difficult subject matter throughout including domestic abuse murder, and gore. This book was written with so much heart I found it impossible to put down. I could sympathize with Latrell and her circumstances. I’m surprised that a raw honest look at abusive relationships can coexist with magical realism. Author does a brilliant job weaving a deeply emotional novel with her own experiences. She has perfectly captured what it’s like to feel alone, abused, and fighting for your place in the world. I cannot recommend this book enough.

✨SUMMARY✨

Katrell needs to find a way to make more money fast. With her mom being unemployed and her most recent deadbeat boyfriend hanging around, Katrell is the primary source of income. Only she's 16 and just trying to graduate from high school.

Her side business of talking to the dead for money just isn't enough anymore. So when she accidentally brings someone back to life, she realizes this could be the answer to her money problems. There's just one small problem, she was warned to stop her summoning's or there would be major consequences.

✨REVIEW✨

This is a story about a teenager in a bad situation trying to fix it on her own but only making it worse. Katrell's life is just teetering on the edge of combustion, she doesn't really have anyone she can turn to without endangering her home life. It's isolating and those emotions come through so strongly.

I am such a fan of using fantasy as symbolism for real life and Bad Witch Burning really surprised me on this front. For any future readers I'll advise you, this is definitely one book you need to read all the way through to get the “aha” moment.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, thank you so much to @NetGalley for this eARC. Bad Witch Burning comes out on August 24th and you can preorder your copy now!

‼️TW: physical abuse, domestic abuse, verbal abuse, death of an animal

After her mom's boyfriend murders her dog, a teen medium discovers she not only has a talent for communicating with the dead--she can bring them back, too.

The most brilliant (and most disturbing) aspect of this quasi-horror novel is the fact that the darkness doesn't come from the revenants. It comes from the humans. With all of the fantasy elements removed, this story would still be a torturous account of the physical and emotional abuse of a child and the strength she finds to endure and ultimately accept help. It is truly a battle for the protagonist to cling to her own self-worth and recognize the found-family of supportive adults and friends that has grown up around her. And it is her righteous anger at the way her mother and her mother's boyfriend treat her that manifests as the ghosts and revenants and the protagonist's own need to burn things down. Despite its often disturbing content, the book has a cathartic feel that I believe the author intended. Although I would advise readers to consider their own life experiences and whether this content is likely to be triggering or unduly disturbing before picking it up, I think some readers with difficult or even cruel family backgrounds will find solidarity and hope in the story.

Bad Witch Burning was a beautifully depressing book. Jessica Lewis has a way with words and describing emotions. I felt all the feels while reading and didn’t want it to end.

Katrell has a pretty strange job. And it’s not the job at the burger joint she’s referring to. Besides working there, she also has a side gig calling up ghosts for people, letting them talk to their lost loved ones. But when she accidentally starts bringing back their bodies and not just their spirits, she has to shift her business. After all, money is money, and she needs to cover rent until her mom and her mom’s boyfriend get a job. Whenever that is.

I received an advanced reading copy of Bad Witch Burning in exchange for an honest review.

Bad Witch Burning is a young adult fantasy novel by Jessica Lewis. It’s a novel that takes place in the regular modern day, with the addition of a girl who can summon ghosts and bring back the dead. It also does a great job of explaining what would happen if someone nowadays were to get powers like these.

From the very beginning, Bad Witch Burning is one of those books that is impossible to put down. I read the whole thing in a single afternoon, unable to tear my eyes away from the page. There’s many elements going on in this novel, and it isn’t just a story about magic gone awry. It’s a story of pain, of what it’s like to have a difficult home life. It’s a story of poverty and abuse. But it’s also a story about friendship, about hope. About being able to ask for help.

Katrell is a character who really comes to life in these pages. She has so many problems, and so many resulting emotions to it. Every feeling she had, it felt incredibly realistic. In fact, it felt more realistic than many other fantasy novels that I’ve read. She feels everything, even the negative emotions, and Lewis doesn’t shy from putting them on the page. And while I’ve never found myself in the same situations as narrated in this book, I was able to experience them through the writing, and feel the frustration and anger, the pain.

Bad Witch Burning is one of those books that can be such a quick read, but the subject matter is difficult and painful. In the end, though, I was so glad to have read it. The novel made me feel Katrell’s desperation, sure, but in the end it gave me so much hope. It’s one of those books that will stand out in my mind when thinking of modern-day fantasies, and one I’d wholeheartedly recommend.

Speaking of difficult subject matter, I do want to make it clear that there is a dog in this book, and if you’re one of those people who need to know what happens to the dog before reading the book, feel free to contact me.

Bad Witch Burning will be released on August 24. You can preorder your copy from Delacorte here.

BAD WITCH BURNING is truly meant for the angry people who have been tossed down by life more times than they can count, for the people who keep believing in the people holding the knife in their backs, for the people who are more powerful than they can imagine, but can only think to the next step in surviving. This is such a powerful story. I cannot express fully just how much this story has affected me.

Where do I even begin to review this book? When I first read the description of the book (a teenage Black witch bringing the dead back to life), I instantly thought this would be about a magical realm with Katrell, the MC, against the world. I didn’t expect it to be about the struggles of a young Black teenager just trying to keep her head above water.

The things I loved about this book are numerous. There’s Will, the type of friend everyone wishes for. She is a strong force hidden behind weak walls. Conrad the gentle turned not-so-gentle-giant. Who doesn’t love a protector that is also a cuddler? Mike, honest but ruthless Mike, is that one outlier that goes above and beyond. Then, there is the sisterly relationship between Will and Katrell. *chef’s kiss* They are friendship goals.

The one thing that I felt could really use some improvement is that there were some loose ends that I am left wondering about after finishing the book. I needed to understand more about the revived persons, the relationship between them and their families, as well as Katrell’s and Will’s control over them. I also needed some more explanation about Katrell’s abilities.

The magical realism in this book sometimes took a backseat to the other issues in the book. I would have liked more magic, but I thoroughly appreciate this book for what it is. It is a cry for help. Katrell’s development, the development of her relationship with Will, Katrell’s moments of stark realization about how people feel about her, and the sisterly bond that Will and Katrell share are enough to make this book magical without the magical elements.

My heart was heavy, I ached with apprehension, and I cried thug tears for Katrell. Knowing that this story is a take on the author’s life makes me wonder how many Katrells are out in the world right now.

4.5/5 stars for my thug tears

Bad Witch Burning is a young adult modern fantasy novel by debut author Jessica Lewis. Lewis opens the book with an author's note, talking about how she wrote this book to deal with her feelings of abandonment by toxic parents who she had tried to love, resulting in a long time internal rage at the world and herself for feeling not good enough. The book is written as a book for kids like Lewis was, who need guidance to let them know that they do have self-worth, and that the problem is with their negligent parental figures, not themselves.

So you should not be surprised that Bad Witch Burning can be a difficult book to read, as its protagonist suffers from parental neglect and abuse, but is very very well done. The protagonist's ability to first speak with the dead and then to resurrect them works is adapted very well into the otherwise normal setting, and the characters involved are really well done, from the protagonist Katrell, to her best friend Will, to the Guidance Counselor Mike, to a bunch of other less likable but still important parts of Katrell's life. It's not a long book, and some elements are a bit underdone or predictable, but it's still very well done and worth your time, especially if you are one of those teens or adults who grew up in a situation like Lewis.

Trigger Warning: Child Abuse (Physical, not Sexual), Animal Cruelty/Murder, Negligent/Abusive Parental Figures, Growing up in Poverty


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Katrell's life is lousy. Her mother is unemployed and doesn't pay the bills, and constantly mooches off the small bits of money that Katrell makes from her after school job. And her mom's rotating set of deadbeat boyfriends only make things worse, especially when they get physically abusive. The only thing Katrell has in her life that makes her happy is her best friend Will, a girl who got through similarly rough times in the foster system before landing with a loving mother and father that Will can't bring herself to trust.

And then there's Katrell's special side job: using her strange magical gift to write letters to summon the dead for people to talk to them one more time - a gift she uses to make just a bit more money, money to pay the rent, and perhaps to save up for a car and eventual freedom.

But when Gerald, her mom's latest boyfriend, kills Katrell's pet dog in a fit of rage, Katrell discovers her magic has evolved to allow her to bring back bodies from the dead. And with her mom and Gerald leaching off her funds more than ever, Katrell decides that bringing back people for good could be a far more valuable business than just bringing back their spirits temporarily.

Yet magic comes at a price, and Katrell soon finds the resurrections leading her on a path beyond her control, a path which might consume her in a bit of rage....a path which she feels she might deserve....
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Bad Witch Burning follows Katrell, who is trying to grow up in a real bad situation, albeit one that will be all too real for a lot of people. Her mother is essentially negligent, not really looking ever for a job to try and support the two of them as they live in their all too poor slum of a neighborhood - forcing Katrell to try to earn money to keep the two of them fed (barely) and off the streets. Katrell has convinced herself that she loves her mother and cannot say no to her mother's requests to take Katrell's save-up money, despite the fact that from a neutral reader's standpoint, it's easy to see that the affection is entirely one sided. Even worse, Katrell's mother brings home abusive boyfriends, who also do not bring any money to their relationships....but do bring physical abuse down on Katrell.

It gets to the point where Katrell spends a lot of her nights over at her friend Will's, a girl who was in a similar situation in the foster system for a while until recently, when Will was placed with adoptive parents who even Katrell can see are genuinely loving and caring. For Will, her past abuse makes it hard for her to accept this, and she is afraid to speak up and fully embrace her new parents, for Will is afraid if she does so she could lose everything. By contrast Katrell sees all this and feels conflicted - because she is happy for Will and wants Will to embrace the love she's found but is also so jealous at the same time of that love.

Her abusive home situation, poverty, and glimpses at a better life make Katrell filled with inner rage, rage she doesn't dare express generally and instead lets boil up inside of her. So when she begins to exploit her magic to do resurrections for lots of cash, she lets that rage guide her into more and more dangerous situations - getting involved too directly with the local crime-lord, performing resurrections even after some of them clearly seem to go wrong (for reasons I won't spoil), and continuing to do so even after they clearly leave her feeling worse and worse physically - such that even her school guidance counselor, who obviously suspects her of being in an abusive situation, can see it and becomes more and more desperate to help her.

The result of all of the above is a set of characters in Katrell, Will, and others who are very believable, as well as a plot that is often very hard to read, even if it's rarely too unpredictable and leads to a happy ending you will see coming a mile away. But it works really well, even if some parts aren't particularly developed (there's a rival girl in school who pops up on page once, is mentioned a few other times as sort of an evil rich girl, and never shows up on page again, for instance). Definitely a strong debut novel, and one that will be of clear value to those in similar situations to Lewis growing up, who could use a story making clear that people like them, people like Katrell, are worth more than the lack of love their parents show them, and that there is something for them out there beyond their abusive relationships.

Katrell uses her ability to talk to the dead to support herself, her mother, and her mother's boyfriend-of-the-week. This calls attention from the world beyond this one, but Katrell needs to earn a living. When she is able to raise the dead, that earns even more. But magic isn't free, and a price has to be paid.

Katrell is determined to make her own way from the very start of the book; her mother hasn't been working, her mother's boyfriend is aggressive and threatening, and Katrell is afraid of being taken away from her mother and put into foster care. It currently worked out for her best friend Will, but Will had bad caretakers before her current foster parents. Katrell has to work to pay all the bills, supplementing her fast-food job with talking with the dead. Because of how tight bills are, especially when she's asked to foot the bill for whatever other things her mother wants to do, Katrell can't ever get ahead and disregards the warning from a ghost that she'll burn down everything around her if she continues talking to the dead. It doesn't seem so bad at first, especially when she's able to resurrect the dog her mother's boyfriend kills.

Katrell is barely sixteen, and being saddled with a parentified role saps a lot of joy and wonder out of her life. She resents the care that others have in her, mistrusting it as a means to call child protective services and separating her from her mother. She loves her mother, even as she's frustrated with how much extra work she has to do to make ends meet when her mother can't. Raising the dead is easy money, and it doesn't seem to do any harm until it does; at that point, Katrell's life spirals even further out of control. Because she's so fiercely independent, she snaps and snarls, driving everyone away that might help her.

I don't usually cry when reading books, and it takes a lot for me to tear up with books. With this one, I had tears streaming down my face in several spots, to the point that my husband asked if I was okay. This is a book that really tugs at your heartstrings; Katrell's rage masks the pain of a child abandoned and taken advantage of, one who mistrusts those that truly care for her as a result. It hurts to see someone so alone and in pain, and this book makes you vicariously feel it. There's so much emotion in these pages, and vindication when you reach the end of it. I raced through this book and wanted to immediately reread it once I hit the end of it.

I’m always excited when I find a stand-alone fantasy or urban fiction book, but I was skeptical that the world building and storyline could really be developed in under 400 pages. Happily I was wrong - the genius of this story is that the world is very similar to ours but with a slight supernatural twist making it very easy to be dropped into the world and quickly pick up the storyline.

The characters are so vividly drawn that I felt ambivalent about none of them - I either loved, hated or wanted to strangle them upon introduction. It had me feeling a wide spectrum of emotions as I read it - it was at times sad, depressing, exciting, hopeful and terrifying. There are some major trigger warnings, posted in a comment below, so be sure to check those out before picking this up.

This felt like a supernatural take on real world problems such as poverty, domestic abuse and the foster care system. It is at times hard to read the situations the 16 year old MC Katrell faces, but that just shows how powerful and emotional this novel was to read. Please do yourself a favor and read the author’s note at the beginning of the book. This was a phenomenal debut and I can’t wait to see what Jessica Lewis comes out with next. 4.5/5⭐️

TW: violent death of an animal, domestic violence, emotional abuse, physical abuse, child abuse and abandonment, gaslighting

4.5/5

I wasn’t positive what to expect out of this book, but I won a digital eARC and figured that it would be interesting enough. The cover is beautiful, but it seemed like an awfully dark book, and I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it.

Katrell can write letters that allow people to speak to the dead. She does this to make money in order to pay the bills. A ghost warns her about using her powers, but then she discovers that she can bring the dead back to life. She realizes that she can make a lot more money by doing that and she proceeds to offer her new service to clients. There is a problem though: magic never comes without a price. Will Katrell be able to, or even want to, pay the price for this magic?

I thought this was a well-written book. It was interesting and able to hold my attention most of the time. It felt like there was a lot of description, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The description lent well to building an atmosphere as well as helping to develop Trell’s character and what drives her to do what she does.

The characters in this book are interesting. There are very few characters that feel honest and good. Not a bad thing, just an interesting thing. Even Trell wasn’t portrayed as this nice, great character. She was flawed and made bad decisions, but you could also understand where she was coming from. I loved the friendship between Will and Trell. The two were obviously close and more than willing to do whatever it takes to protect each other.

I did have a couple of issues with this book. My main thing is that things felt repetitive at times and dragging at others. It just felt like some information and actions kept happening. It just got a bit much and I found that I was willing to skip over some of the parts just because they seemed the same. It doesn’t happen a whole lot, but it was enough that I stopped caring about some of the plot points. Then there were the points where it just felt like nothing was happening for a while.

This was a pretty good book. An interesting concept with a nice payoff at the end. Solid character development too.

What an amazing combination of magical, dark real life, and redemption for putting up with ... everything. This story is so gut-wrenching in every way imaginable, and the characters are perfectly imperfect. I loved Katrell from the first page. She is many of us in a seemingly impossible situation, with too many responsibilities she should never have shouldered.

But this strong, vulnerable young woman keeps powering through. And we ache right alongside her. Page-turning becomes compelling, because, shizz keeps deepening. I had to read a light-hearted chick lit after I finished this book to ease and soothe my emotions. But it's a much-needed story and one I'll return to again and again.

The delicate balance between tough stuff and fantasy in this book is flawless. You feel for the protagonist as much as you are deeply disturbed by some of her decisions.
Mandatory reading, particularly for white readers. Perhaps a more palatable dose of reality dished out by authors like Angie Thomas, but it’s crucial for teens to develop empathy instead of apathy or a superiority complex.

The actual story in this book was totally captivating. Katrell was a complex and deeply hurt protagonist and watching her grow and slowly accept the fact that she was enough was really emotional to read. Some parts of the story were really hard to read, not because they were bad, but because they were that real and impactful. Parts of the story were still super funny and the majority of the characters were super loveable without being static, one-dimensional characters. The story dealt with the complexities of family in a very nuanced way and definitely didn't gloss over anything. The magic in the book was interesting and the ways it interacted with the people around her and her thoughts itself added depth to the story. This was a really moving story and I think it was an excellent book, especially in the YA genre, because it didn't shy away from the fact that the protagonist was a teenager, which just added to the intensity of the story.