In Order to Write

Spells and Sleepingbags by Sarah Mlynowski — review

May 6th, 2008 | by smokingpen |

I like to read YA novels. They are often good, with amazing writing, well-structured stories, and characters that are recognizable and well developed. With that in mind, about once a year, I’ve read another installment of Sarah Mlynowski’s series of books Magic in Manhattan series. Previous books in the series are: Bras and Broomsticks and Frogs and French Kisses.

Essentially, this is a series of books about a teen girl, Rachel, her younger sister, and their mother and life after divorce with a little bit of magic thrown in, just for good measure. Before reading the series, or even the first book (Bras and Broomsticks) you should know that Rachel is shallow, self-centered, egocentric, complains about her lot(s) in life, and wants to see her parents back together. On top of that, her younger sister, by two years, develops magical abilities in the first book, leaving Rachel as a normal human being; and Rachel uses Miri (her sister) to get what she wants.

The first two books (Bras and Broomsticks and Frogs and French Kisses) cover Miri’s growth in magic and Rachel trying, very hard, to spell, trick, of flirt her way into her main crush’s heart, aka Raf. On top of Miri casting a spell (difficulty determined by number of brooms 1 broom is easy, 5 brooms is extremely difficult) that allows Rachel to dance (she can’t normally) causes Raf’s brother Wil to fall in love with her, and pretty much messes up everything – because magic has its costs.

One of the conceits that Mlynowski uses, in these books, for magic is that a request for something through magic takes that thing (say a pretty dress) from somewhere, taking something you have (say, the clothes you are wearing right now). Your item is deposited wherever the object you wanted it taken from and people are confused.

At the end of the previous book, Rachel discovers that she has the magical gift-slash-talent as well when she stops it from raining on a moved Senior Prom which leaves the reader dangling as they wait for the next book to come out.

In Spells and Sleepingbags, Rachel and Miri continue on with their lives. It is the summer after Rachel’s Freshman year of high school, and they have been sent to spend their summer at a sleep away camp called Camp Wood Lake. This is where Wil, Raf, and their older brother all go for the summer, with Wil and the oldest brother working as camp counselors. The outcome, Rachel has determined to fix her mistakes in the last book and finally hook up with Raf.

The problem in the book, though, is that Mlynowski spends an inordinate amount of time reinforcing that Rachel is very shallow and self-centered with her looking, immediately, for a new BFF (best friend forever, note, BFF’s are best friends forever) and finding one, immediately, on the bus to Camp Wood Lake. What she does not do is set up the story she is trying to tell. Instead, she sets up the story that she never bothers to tell. As a result, reading the first eighth to a quarter of the book ended up being a bit tiresome. The same was true in her second book as well (I recall really enjoying the setup in the first book).

As a reader you have to get almost to the end of the book before you actually get to the plot of the book. Sure, there are elements and hints toward where Mlynowski is attempting to take the story; but she never actually sets it up. Instead, we deal with Rachel and her vacuous nature while she attempts to get a new boyfriend and not be the girl all the other girls pick on.

Enter the dragon, very quickly, Mlynowski hints at Liana, the proposed antagonist to the story. The problem with Liana is that she has such a small role in the book until (nearly) the very end, and Mlynowski gets rid of Rachel’s new BFF in a bass-akward way that it felt rushed and forced. Like the three Star Wars prequel movies. George Lucas, in all his wisdom, introduced the world to a kid named Anni. This, by the by, was the proto-Darth Vadar. The problem with the Prequel movies is that Lucas waited until the third movie to tell all three movies he wanted to tell. No one really cares about Anni. People did care about Anakin Skywalker and how he was already a good pilot when Obi Wan Kenobi first met him and how, at that stage in life, he rose to prominence and then fell from grace. Episode 3 should’ve been broken into three parts and told as three different movies.

Like Star Wars, Mlynowski waits until the end of the story to introduce what she is trying to accomplish. Liana wants to be Rachel. Therefore, Liana has to make Rachel’s life so hideous that Rachel doesn’t want it anymore. However, this is done, rather poorly, by keeping Rachel from kissing Raf and in the end having Miri choose Liana over Rachel. Had Mlynowski provided the proper clues in the beginning of the book, Alison is potentially the bad guy or Liana is on the bus already when Rachel gets on; Liana introduces herself as Rachel and Miri’s cousin early on; events are made to look like coincidences rather than deliberate attacks on Rachel; Rachel and Miri’s relationship begins to deteriorate slowly; and Rachel has to deal with her new powers all the time knowing who Liana really is makes a more compelling story.

OR, Mlynowski was pretty desperate to get Liana and Rachel to trade bodies and as a result, having Rachel accept that in response to the rebuff she feels from Raf as a result of her dating Wil (previous book) and then spending the book in Liana’s body with Miri not noticing and, as a subplot, trying to figure out what is going on with Liana and Rachel, everyone already knowing that Liana is their cousin, would’ve also been a more compelling story and more to the point of what Mlynowski may have been trying to accomplish.

The book took me about a quarter to get into and start enjoying what I was reading. I picked Liana out of the crowd as the bad egg from the beginning and as a witch and as a cousin. The book was not groundbreaking, it was interesting, but it didn’t do enough in the beginning to cause me to really get a grasp on where the author was taking the reader; and it felt like Mlynowski was trying very hard to use her setup from book one all the way through book three… and her dialogue felt more kitschy than catchy and more adult than teenager. Plus, honestly, with all the people I talk to and all the people I associate with of all age levels, I don’t think (outside of a cellphone commercial) I’ve ever actually heard any girl refer to another girl as a BFF or multiple girls all referring to their group as BFF’s.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens with the next book… through, there is a teaser for it at the end of the Spells and Sleepingbags and I am a little worried it will ultimately end up more of the same.