Mary: For this installment of YA Book Club, we're reading The Babysitter's Coven by Kate Williams. The novel follows Esme Pearl, a high schooler with a babysitter's club (OK, it's just her and her friend Janis, but still), just like in the novels. Everything goes sideways when a new girl appears as school, Cassandra Heaven, and the girls discover they have magical babysitter powers! This book is described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Adventures in Babysitting, and I definitely agree that it relies heavily on several different supernatural-teen favorites, as well as The Babysitter's Club.

Emily:Yes, this is a mashup of all your supernatural teen faves with a dash of Babysitters Club because WHO DOESN'T LOVE THE BABYSITTERS CLUB. I will fight you.

Mary: I've never read it, as we've talked about before, but I get the basics. I did watch the TV show.

It had a bop of a theme song.

Emily: Say hello to your friends

Mary: BABYSITTER'S CLUB

Emily: SAY HELLO TO THE PEOPLE WHO CARE

Mary: So catchy.

I guess the first question we have to ask ourselves is, does this premise work? It's definitely combining a lot of familiar things into something new.

Emily: Yes, I think the premise works. As a general premise, this idea is good and would make for a good series.

Emily: We have this group of girls who are called "sitters"

Mary:And they have powers!

Emily: And they're basically in charge of "babysitting" the world. By keeping demons at bay and stuff. And they get these cool spell books that have ingredients people can actually find in the modern world. No eye of newt. Think more like... vape pens

So all of that was really interesting.

Mary: Yes, I agree

Emily: But...

Mary: Big but…

Emily: As excited as I was for this, I didn't really like this book.

Mary: It feels a little...jumbled? It has all the ingredients, but the spell just doesn't work, to go with a theme from the book.

For one thing, I think it took entirely too long to GET to the magic. I was about 100 pages in thinking, OK, but when does the plot I was promised start?

Emily: For me, it's not even that it was jumbled. It was just very by-the-numbers YA in a way that made it feel almost a little TOO youthful.

I love a good pop culture reference, but this was all pop culture references. And every outfit everyone was wearing was described in great detail, complete with pop culture references.

And our narrator came off as, dare I say, a little dumb? Her inner monologue was just very young.

Mary: Yes, that's very true. There's a whole running theme in the book where Esme and Janis love fashion and like to call each other to plan their outfits. I actually enjoyed that, but found it extremely hard to believe that these two teens had vast knowledge of pop culture that happened well before they were born.

Then again, I was a little pop culture freak when I was in high school, so.

Emily: Yeah, but I just think the references would be different. Like, MEAN GIRLS is retro to this generation. We wouldn't be referencing the original Halloween movies or The Craft.

Young people, correct me if I'm wrong. I am an old.

Mary: Yeah, definitely not! I discovered yesterday that I was an old, though. Music no longer makes sense to me.The novel does manage to feel very by-the-numbers without doing enough to differentiate itself from its sources, like Buffy. You mentioned this when we were talking before we began writing this, but acknowledging you draw inspiration from something doesn't really excuse not executing it well.

Emily: Right. The sitters acknowledge that this reminds them of Buffy.

And I'm like.... yeah......

Mary: Because it's basically Buffy.

I've never seen Buffy, but the inclusion of someone who watches over them (in this case, their gym coach) a la Giles is just...very Buffy? If could have been different. Even a little differentiation might have been nice.

The book does read as very traditional, younger grades YA, but the marketing for it seems to be trying to appeal to an older crowd. This is where YA gets complicated for me. There are definitely different tiers of it, and those tiers are not always well represented or communicated to the audience.

Emily: Yes, I agree.

Mary: The cover for this book is really cool, and just did not jive with how young it felt.

Emily: I think the cover is making it seem like it's going to be a lot cheekier and funnier than it ends up being.

And the book itself is pretty sincere, which also makes it feel young.

Because it's hard to be sincere about babysitter witches.

Mary: Definitely.

The sincerity was kind of endearing in its own way. I always feel sort of hopeful when I read a middle grades book with very earnest protagonists. It makes me think there's hope in the world.

Nevermind that an adult wrote it

Emily: But yes. Middle grade is the word for this.

It feels middle grade.

Mary: It definitely does. A little reductive of some well established supernatural teen tropes, a little too sincere, a little talk-downy.

Emily: Which is fine, but it's been marketed as YA and this is YA BOOK CLUB.

Mary: EXACTLY. The publisher is not respecting the sanctity of this club.

Emily: I feel like the marketing is going to make a lot of people disappointed.

Mary: It is. The cover definitely sells it.

Emily: Because they promise one thing and deliver something else. And I don't really feel like that's the author's fault.

Mary: Which isn't a BAD thing, just not what I ordered.

Emily: What is the author's fault though? The bad writing.

Mary: Say more about that. You had some definite craft thoughts!

Emily:Well, I had one main craft thought. And it's that the descriptions in this book were really repetitive.

Mary: Yes, yes

Emily: I cannot tell you how many times the author writes things like, "I closed the door with a slam" or "the book landed on the floor with a bang.” Probably once on every page. Which is... too much.

Mary: Always closing things in loud ways.

Emily: I'm not even exaggerating.

Mary: We don't need a description of every door close.

You're really not. It's egregious.

Emily: Like... just say "I slammed the door." Or "I threw the book down."

I will get how it sounded.

I know what a slammed door does.

Mary: We've all slammed a door.

Especially teenagers know this.

Emily: We've all had a door slammed at us, for goodness sakes.

Mary: Teenagers love to slam doors, or I did.

Emily: Oh for real. If you slam it hard enough for something to fall off the wall, all the better.

Mary: Yes, that really drives the point in.

Emily: YEAH MOM

Mary: *turns on The Cranberries loudly*

Emily: omg always The Cranberries

Or Alanis Morissette on a really bad day.

WE ARE OLDS

Mary: Another way we know this is for younger folks is that there's a romance, sort of. If it was for older teens, we might actually get a kiss, or even sex, but no. Not any of that in this book.

Then again, it might be Kate Williams trying to set up a long-term thing. This book is going to be a series, and there's even a declaration of that in the back of the book.

Emily: But also (spoiler) her crush turned out to be kind of an idiot.

So I feel like this might be one of those situations where she realized the dude she liked isn't actually perfect and might actually be a dumbass.

Mary: SUCH AN IDIOT. He is truly the dumbest.

It's kind of nice to have a book where the supposed relationship doesn't happen.

Emily: So glad he ended up in a trunk. That's how that romance should have gone.

Mary: Oh yeah, the latter part of the book was just the girls shoving him around and thinking about how stupid he was.

SHE SLAMS THE TABLE ON THE GROUND AS THE CRANBERRIES PLAY

Emily:We need to talk about Brian.

Mary: Yes, Brian is their keeper, or whatever. Their Giles. He's also the gym teacher, the football coach, and Esme's dad's best friend.

And he's also incompetent.

And not in a fun way.

Emily: He's AWFUL

So he takes a job as a gym teacher so he can keep an eye on the girls

And he's the football coach even though he "hates football."

But Brian, I think it might be time to admit you're kind of obsessed with football.

Because you forgot YOUR REAL JOB.

TO COACH THE FOOTBALL TEAM

Mary: He always talks about football.

YES! He LETS THE GIRLS GO TO HELL because he's obsessed with football, essentially.

Emily: And he's like "I would be teaching you girls but the big game is coming up"

Mary: Brian has a football problem

Emily: So when the big bad comes at the end, the girls have NO IDEA WHAT TO DO.

Because they've literally had one lesson.

It was in the gym, of course.

Mary: Honestly, I don't know that Brian could have told them what to do.

Emily: He sucks. Fire him.

The best thing he has going for him is his interior decorating prowess. But how will that help them when they're dealing with actual hell? No idea.

Mary: Which is supposed to be surprising? As if men can't like multiple things. It will not help them at all with hell or demons.

Emily: Yes, you can like football and decorating. It's allowed.

Mary: It's preferred, maybe.

Emily: Yes, please like more than one thing.

Mary: I would love a little decorating help.

Emily: Should we talk about the mom?

Mary: Sure, yes. I had...thoughts. Or feelings about her.

Emily: OKAY PLEASE

Mary: Esme's mom is locked away in a facility because she had some sort of mental break and stopped...I don't know? Participating in reality? Turns out she's cursed!

And Esme briefly gets to talk to her mom as she is because the curse is interrupted. But we end the book with mom back in the facility, back in the curse.

In a way, it makes sense because mental illness and demons have a long and intimate history. But it's 2019 and I wish we'd stop conflating mental illness with...everything.

I'm tired, Emily. Tired of it!

Emily: Yes, also she's being treated very poorly

They need to get her out of there

Mary: Truly, they do.

I wonder why they put her there in the first place? Was she a danger to others or herself? She seems to just sit there and look around, which she could do comfortably with her family. At least they visited her.

Emily: Yeah it definitely seems like they could just take care of her. Especially since mentally she's there. She just can't communicate?Like she knows what's going on. The rules of her curse were very iffy.

Mary: Verrrry iffy. I didn't fully get it.

What did you rate the book?

Emily: 2 stars

Mary: I gave it 3, but only because I think a lot of my problem was with the marketing, which wasn't really the author or the book's fault. It's the publisher! I definitely had to adjust my expectations halfway through.

Emily: Yeah I just didn't have fun reading this book

Mary: That's definitely fair.

Emily: It had moments, but overall I finished it because I had to

Mary: Because we gave ourselves homework! However, our next book is not going to feel like homework because you love the author.

Emily: I love giving myself homework

Mary: Do you want to introduce it?

Emily: YES our next book is There's Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon

I'm a big fan of When Dimple Met Rishi, so I'm very excited about this one

Mary: I've never read her work, but I know how much you enjoy it, so I'm excited too!

Emily: I was less into From Twinkle, with Love, but at the end of the day, did I still enjoy reading it? Yes.

Mary: Which is all we can ask for.

Emily:Anyway, we haven't done realistic YA in a while, so I'm excited to return to it for a bit