Thoughts on Witch Eyes

[glitter_n_gore]

Here is my first entry for the Permanent Floating YA Diversity Book Club proposed by rachelmanija: Witch Eyes, by Scott Tracey. This is the October/November pick for the book club, so I'm a bit late in the game, but still playing.



The protagonist, Braden, is gifted with the unusual ability to detect and dismantle any spell simply by looking at it. No stranger to the supernatural, Braden was raised by his Uncle John to be a witch. Unfortunately, he's stubborn, and his power is WAY out of control. Then one day, while Braden is at the grocery, he gets knocked over by a vision so overwhelming he feels he has no choice but to follow it to the town of Belle Dam, where loyalties are split and tensions are high, and both sides want Braden's so-called "witch eyes" for their own purposes. The problem? One of the sides is led by Braden's estranged father. The other one is led by the mother of his new boyfriend.


So that's the plot in a nutshell.

The characters are portrayed effectively enough, and I quite liked the sweeping imagery that accompanied each of Braden's visions. This narrator has a clear, strong voice and some vocal opinions about right and wrong, and is justifiably resentful over being used for his abilities.

However, the structure and motivations here have a lot of problems. While I liked a lot of the characters, a lot of the actions and choices they make seem to come completely out of left field. There are a lot of "telling" scenes in which Braden gets a hefty, expository monologue about the history of Belle Dam and why these two sides are fighting each other. I was definitely thrown by how little his uncle was involved once the location changed--if this guy is basically his father figure, what's stopping him from taking the next bus out of town and bringing him the hell back home? These types of questions popped up in my mind many times.

The romance isn't terrible (which is high praise coming from me, by the way, because I'm not a fan of romance generally), and while the relationship between Braden and Trey was sweet and believable for the most part, there were elements of it that baffled me. Such as Trey justifying his mother poisoning Braden with some kind of truth serum because she doesn't know if she can trust him yet; and Braden using his power to possess Trey and physically force him to do something that I won't reveal because it's a major part of the finale. Their interaction with each other makes it seem like a healthy, balanced partnership, but again, the actual actions they take do not make sense to me.

Overall, I found it okay, and a quick read, but clunky in places and more like a highly polished first draft than a proper, published book. I've been told this is the beginning of a series. I can do without reading the others, I think.

Comments

[derien.livejournal.com]

Maybe Tracey should have written two or three books and got some feedback and then gone back and rewritten this one before actually starting to publish, as copperbadge did/does.

[glitter-n-gore.livejournal.com]

I don't know who that is, but beta-readers are invaluable and very precious.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Oh, Copperbadge wrote a ton of m/m fanfic (pretty odd considering he tells himself he's completely het ;)) and developed a huge following and now he writes original books and self-publishes. But he lives off his day job and gives most of his book profits to charity.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Oh, but what I was originally thinking about - he does this thing where he posts the drafts of his books, lets everyone give him feedback (he calls it distributed proofreading) and then tries to integrate it all back in.