After reading some ‘heavier’ books, I picked this up as something ‘lighter’ I could read. I don’t have the nostalgia factor as some of my peers may have for the book- I remember seeing it in school libraries but didn’t have the time to read it myself.
Wow. Really glad I didn’t. This book is bad.

It might just be my age, but I’ve also recently read other middle-grade and YA novels that at worst I found ‘meh’, but Witch & Wizard is painfully bad. Everything from the pacing, the world building, the protagonists, the villains…it’s all so tired and convoluted that I wouldn’t even recommend this for younger readers.

The protagonists are written with the intention to make them sound cool and sarcastic, but too often they come across as one-note and mean-spirited. The antagonists are cartoonishly evil and have no serious weight despite the totalitarian elements. The world building is essentially nonexistent, so good like trying to figure out how the ruling class and magic powers are supposed to work. Everything in the story is trite from top to bottom, and I genuinely can’t find any redeeming qualities in this book as hard as I try.

Im astonished to say this is probably the worst YA book I’ve read thus far. Incredibly insane for how much I’ve seen this book hailed in libraries and book stores when this series was still fresh.