Thank you to NetGalley, SOURCEBOOKS Jabberwocky, and Alex Aster for the opportunity to read Curse of the Night Witch in exchange for an honest review.
Curse of the Night Witch is the first book in the Emblem Island series. The story takes place on Emblem Island (of course). All people are born with an emblem, a mark on their wrist or arm that denotes a certain skill, such as strength or leadership.
Tor is the son of his village leader, and his emblem reflects this. He doesn’t want to take up the leadership position. He wants to be able to breath underwater. Being in water is his whole life, yet he must hide his passion. Once a year, the villagers, after they reach age twelve, get to make a wish during their annual Eve ceremony. Tor wants a new emblem. When his wish angers the wish-god, he is cursed with a short life, his emblem replaced with the terrible omen of a dark eye. Anyone who touches the curse gains the curse themselves. The only way to rid themselves of this curse is to hope the Night Witch will have mercy and remove the curse, or kill her.
Now Melda, Engle, and Tor must follow the mythological clues from a collection of short stories called The Book of Cuentos. As they get closer and closer to the shadowed land of the Night Witch, a place lacking of feeling and color, they continue to encounter creatures and beings from the collected stories. One of the neat aspects about the structure of this book is between every chapter, one of the little short stories is inserted. They are very short and told in a fable sort of way with no dialogue. It’s just a description of events leading to the creation or myth of one of the various creatures. Still, an interesting structural choice.
While the beginning was rather interesting, the middle slogged on just a tad as the trio continues to encounter various myths from The Book of Cuentos. As a story, I liked the idea of the emblems that each person is born with. It somewhat reminds me of My Hero Academia where a large portion of the population is born with quirks, or Blank, where everyone is born with some kind of mark that ultimately pairs them with their life partner. It’s a fun idea in the development of Emblem Island’s world building.
The characters are certainly Middle-grade. They are twelve and go through struggles with personal choice and will power that a middle-grade age person might go through, despite those challenges being presented in a fantasy lens. I think this is a very fun book for the age group to read.
I also appreciated the fact that the entire book was contained within itself, except for the end. It could have been a stand-alone, but the climax and very end offer further adventures for these characters, adventures that seem potentially more intriguing than their first. Holistically, this book is enjoyable and quick, an easy recommendation.
Genre: Middle-Grade Fantasy
Teresa Crider, Review Writer 