For some reason, I went on a spree of ordering a bunch of books that weren’t out yet. Pre-orders! Pre-orders and their campaigns!1 And this one was one I actually just missed the campaign for, but I still got the book. Let’s check out some more middle grade, right?
Curse of the Night Witch is the story of Tor, a boy who was born with an emblem marking his as a leader. He wants nothing more than to escape this fate and pursue his actual dreams, and so wishes for something else. What he gets instead is a curse that will kill him and, along with his friends, he must find the Night Witch to lift the curse.
This is a middle grade quest book, two things I kept forgetting while I was reading it but two things that it is good at. The main characters are twelve, and Tor in particular does act like it. He starts out only caring about himself and his problems, but gradually comes to think about other people as well. And, given that they’re moving to a new location every chapter or two, he has a lot of opportunities to grow and change.
Given that I haven’t read a lot of quest narratives in recent years, so I kept expecting some of the events to come back around somehow. When it didn’t, I had to remind myself that these are different genre conventions I’m working with and I needed to by a bit more flexible with what was happening.
Overall, it was an entertaining read! I would probably recommend it for a younger audience than myself, which is always great to say about a book intended for a young audience. Definitely check it out, or get it for that younger person in your life!
- It’s because I’m thinking about doing one myself, tbh [↩]