Spellcaster discussion

Spellcaster – Claudia Gray
Review by Destiny Kley

This is the first in the Series, and Nadia is the main character, along with her newfound friends. Nadia and her family, her dad and younger brother Cole moved to Captive Sound. Her parents recently divorced, and they decided it was best to move to a new place to get a fresh start. Nadia’s family hadn’t even reached their new house when they got into a car accident; just past the border of the town. This is how she met Mateo, he was the one who pulled her family out of the wreck, and since that moment, they have been inseparable. And the first day of school, Nadia met Verlaine, an outcast in the community that no one truly cared for her. Nadia, Verlaine, and Mateo quickly become best of friends because of what happens later, Nadia and her powers is what links them altogether. Nadia knows she isn’t supposed to tell anyone that she is a witch, especially no man, but she soon realizes after she discovered that Mateo is her steadfast, she must break one of the first laws or witchcraft and tell the first man about witchcraft.

I thought this book always had a moving line, and something was always happening. The characters really had a chance to grow throughout the plot, and as they grew, the more careful they became. I really enjoyed seeing how Nadia grew, but I saw more growth in Mateo. Mateo was a strong character, and his personality was unique. The plot was intense and kept me wanting to read more, I was eager to find out what would happen next, as something new was continuously popping up. When Elizabeth became an important character to the plot, I wanted to know more about why she is the way she is, what caused her to become evil. As her character develops, you find out that she works for the One Beneath, aka, the devil, and it was surprising to find out about this, because she is the town’s favorite person. I never liked Elizabeth all that much because she was constantly up to no good, trying to destroy Mateo with his family curse, going after Nadia, it was all kind of frustrating seeing things play out the way they did. And I personally thought that her character was a bit over emphasized. As for Verlaine, she was very clearly the town’s outcast, but it wasn’t her fault. It became known that Elizabeth had “stolen” her lovability. Which means, the way everyone feels about Elizabeth, is supposed to be the way everyone feels about Verlaine. I enjoyed seeing all the characters grow into their own personality, and circumstances. And I think the author did an great job with the pacing of the plot, and spacing in which you learn certain things about a character, the details were spread out enough so that it wasn’t one cluster of details that made the rest of the book boring.