JINX
Meg Cabot
HarperTeen
Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Paperback: 9780060837662
Hardcover: 9780060837648
288 pages

• Read an Excerpt

Jean Honeychurch is sent by her family to live with her aunt, uncle and cousins in New York City. She loved her hometown in Iowa, but after a boy sort of stalks her, her loved ones decide she needs a change. The only problem is that Jean may have cast a spell on the young man to make him fall desperately in love with her in the first place, which no one knows. So a new start should erase all that, right?

Jean is also known as “Jinx” by members of her family because she’s prone to mishaps. For example, no one is there to meet her in New York because they thought she was coming the next day. Then she trips on the stairs of their house. When she finally arrives, she finds her teen cousin Tory getting drugs and smoking weed in the gazebo in the backyard. Tory advertises having a friend with benefits who she meets in the boiler room at school during a free period. In fact, most of Tory’s friends seem to be speaking another language, and Jean wonders what she is in for. One boy in the group who doesn’t seem to fit in either is Zach, a really cute senior neighbor.

Jean is determined not to cast any spells in her new life, but when she flashes on a scene where Zach gets run over by a bike messenger, she can’t help but jump in and save him. No one doubts her story of how she knew to help him, except for Tory, who saw her jump in before the messenger even came onto the sidewalk.

Tory --- or Torrance, as she now wants to be called --- reminds Jean of the family legend that a first-born daughter in every generation is a witch. But she thinks that maybe there are two witches this time. Tory shows Jean the sort of voodoo doll she made with Zach’s real hair to make him love her. She invites Jean to be part of a coven with her friends. But Jean knows how magic can go wrong and denies being a witch. Then Jean finds more evidence of harmful spells around the house and takes action to stop Tory.

When a dead rat appears at her locker, Jean thinks there is more than black magic going on. She realizes that Tory will stop at nothing to prove who the real witch is. Jean didn’t fit in back in Iowa, with her preacher mother, a houseful of siblings and one bathroom. She isn’t sure she feels comfortable in the Big Apple either, with a huge suite of rooms to herself, a new private school and a different set of social rules. Clearly she needs her magic to help, but it’s hard to admit who she is and what she can do when the results have gone so wrong before. Can she protect the people she cares about without anyone, including herself, getting hurt?

With this funny story filled with both crazy and lovable characters, Meg Cabot proves once again that there is no jinx on her magical writing talent.

    --- Reviewed by Amy Alessio

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