While I was captivated by the premise, I found the execution fell flat.
Rating: 2/5
Double double, twins spell trouble…
Hunter and Mercy Goode are twin witches, direct descendants of the founder of their town of Goodeville. As their ancestors have done before them, it is now time for the twins to learn what it means to be Gatekeepers–the protectors of the Gates to different underworlds, ancient portals between their world and realms where mythology rules and nightmares come to life.
When their mother becomes the first victim in a string of murders, the devastated sisters vow to avenge her death. But it will take more than magic to rein in the ancient mythological monsters who’ve infected their peaceful town.
Now Hunter and Mercy must come together and accept their destiny or risk being separated for good.
I picked this up as a buddy read with my book bestie, Rachel @rach_elreads. We were both excited to pick this up. A book about sister witches? Yes, please! I was especially excited because I was also a fan of the House of Night series, also written by this duo. Well… up until near the end, I stopped at the 10th book, as I found the series starting to get repetitive and a bit boring… Sorry, not sorry.
But despite falling of with HoN, I was excited for this new book by this duo. I was especially intrigued by the premise. Twin sister witches from a long line of witches who are gatekeepers of different underworlds. How exciting is that!
However, while I was captivated by the premise, I found the execution fell flat. Though I went into this knowing it was young adult, I felt this was extremely childish even for a young adult book. Along with that, it seemed like there were several plot holes due to an unnecessary side plot that stole the focus away from the main plot. It’s all due to one of the twins, Mercy, who I found to be very immature, anyway, and her little romance with her boyfriend. This romance was extremely annoying to follow. Especially when it led to a sex scene that was so unneeded. It was just distracting as then it was all the characters seemed to focus on after that scene happens.
While I was captivated by the premise, I found the execution fell flat.
And *minor spoiler alert* what is up with this duo and blow jobs?! Can it at least be the other way around next time…
I also found Hunter’s yearning for love annoying too. I’m all for LGBTQ+ characters. But Hunter’s random thoughts of hoping for love was overly distracting. Like can we focus on the magic, please?
Speaking of magic, there was simply not enough of this for me. As I mentioned, this just focused way too much on the romantic side plot rather than the issue at hand. And that really bothered me. It made me want to roll my eyes at everything. Honestly, my favorite part was the prologue where we see a flashback to the first witch. It just went downhill from there. This is where those plot holes were for me. I felt we were missing details about the history of magic for this line of witches. I would have loved to learn more about their history and their beliefs. And since almost nothing is truly explained on any of this, I was a little confused about some of the things going on involving magic.
This just focused way too much on the romantic side plot rather than the issue at hand.
Overall, this was a big miss for me. I probably won’t be picking up the sequel. I love young adult books, but this felt way too childish and didn’t have nearly enough magic.
However, if you enjoy a book with witches and teenage drama you might enjoy this more than I did. I hope you do if you decide to pick this up!
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