What's in the Witch's Kitchen? by Nick Sharratt

I know it's a little delayed, but it would be remiss of me to not mention this book. E is absolutely insanely crazy for it. Even though Halloween passed over two weeks ago, we still read this book daily. Why? It's a book totally for little boys. It mentions pee and poop which E finds absolutely HILARIOUS. He loves the other gross and scary things too, but especially the excrement pages. I know. He is such a boy. What happened to my sweet little baby? This book is simply a gimmicky, cute book full of flaps for toddlers to explore. Each page has two flaps... a good flap and a bad flap. E gets so excited when we get to each gross or scary item and I start saying "ew gross!" or "ahh!".

You need to be a very animated reader though for this one. When one of our babysitters tried to read it to him in a normal voice, he thought it was boring and wanted to move on. However, when Mom or Dad read it, it is worthy of big ol' belly chuckles.

"What's in the Witch's Kitchen?" by Nick Sharratt is published by Candlewick. E received a copy as a gift from his wonderful Grandma.

Angel Burn by L.A. Weatherly

L.A. Weatherly’s “Angel Burn” is the first installment of a paranormal trilogy (what isn’t a trilogy these days?). In “Angel Burn”, angels are creatures that stalk human beings and prey on their life energy. They feed on humans’ energies a la vampires and cause lots of residual damage such as cancers, mental illness, etc. Alex is a ruthless assassin who was trained in the art of killing angels instead of having a normal childhood. At seventeen, he works for the CIA as part of a mission to rid the planet of these predators. His life is the same repeated routine for over two years now, get a target, kill a target, move on. Then he meets Willow and everything changes. Without going into too many spoilers, it’s boy meets girl, girl and boy hate each other, girl and boy fall in love and experience a life-threatening adventure to save the world. Ya know, the same stuff that happens to all of us everyday.

I’m on the fence about L.A. Weatherly’s “Angel Burn”. It reminded me a lot of Stephenie Meyer’s “The Host”. I really enjoyed it up until the mushy gushy parts, then it sort of crashed and burned (cue sad trombone noise) for me. The pacing just seemed to slow down dramatically and it became so soap opera-esque. It was a really disappointing turn to the story. Of course, I love mushy gushy parts as much as the next gal, but they can’t completely kill the action in a very action packed book. They need to move with the action and be energized by it.

I think it may just be me though. This book is extremely well loved. I also didn’t like Disney’s “Princess and the Frog” which was hatehatehate and then WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM love. That’s kind of how I feel about “Angel Burn”. There was a lot of negativity and no build up to the romance. No give and pull back... teasing the reader. That’s what makes angsty stuff so delicious.

The other part of this book that got to me was the switching back and forth from first person to third person. The first time this transition happened I was so confused. It was jarring and hurt the pacing of the book a bit too. I adjusted with time, but I would have liked to have heard Alex’s thoughts from Alex directly.

Gosh, I sound like such a negative Nancy today! I did enjoy reading this book (I finished and that says a lot right there) and I will definitely be reading the sequel. I’m just not clamouring for it like I am with other trilogies I’ve read recently. The action sequences are excellent, the twist on angels is fun, and the characters are likable. If you like paranormal action-heavy romance books, you’ll love “Angel Burn”.

"Angel Burn" has already been released in the UK under the title “Angel”. It is scheduled to be released in the US on May 24th of this year. I received a digital ARC to review courtesy of the publisher Candlewick via NetGalley.