Anderson, Jodi Lynn. (2022). Thirteen Witches: The Memory Thief. Aladdin.
Imagine living a normal, well, uneventful life. You’re 12 years old. Your mom is vacant and you find yourself having to be the grown-up most of the time. She spends a lot of time in a dream world or staring out the window when she isn’t working from home. Half the time it’s like she doesn’t even recognize you. But you go to school. You have a best friend. You write stories that help you process and cope, entertain and even soothe your friend. But now that best friend is starting to change, and you’re afraid you’re going to lose the only person you could count on, and why do they need more friends anyway? Why do things have to change?
Then a bombshell drops. You decide your best friend is right and you need to grow up a little so you throw your “childish” stories (never thinking that it might be a gift, a talent a super power) into the fire. But that one act caused another…you can now see ghosts and the magical realm all around you and one of them inadvertently tells you that you’re the daughter of a long line of witch-hunters. And now one of them, the Memory Thief, who has obviously stolen your mother’s memories, is after you.
You must find a witch’s weapon, find the Memory Thief, avoid the other 11 witches and their familiars, discover what happened to you on the day you were born (and learn of an unbearable loss) and then kill the Memory Thief before she comes for you on the new moon. Except, she got gutsy and she visited you more than once, when the moonlight was blocked by the clouds. Oh and did you know that there is a Moon Goddess; that you can climb a ladder to the moon (if she lets you); there are cloud herder entities; ghosts are EVERYWHERE, even the ghosts of insects, and that witches and kill ghosts…no afterlife, no nothing, they just cease to be.
Meanwhile, you put your foot into it, verbally, compromising your relationship with your best friend, who still just wants to help you. Your mom’s life is in danger, as well as your own, your friend and now your ghost friends, and there are mysteries that have to be solved before you can figure out how to defeat this witch, but you’ve only got 10 days. TEN DAYS!
I was a little skeptical when I started reading this book, because I usually root for the witch, but this time, I was definitely rooting for the witch hunter. The characters, even the ghosts! are super well written, believable and easy to invest in. The storyline, no matter how fantastic, is still believable. There is suspense, and as I said mystery. I am a little annoyed that one of the character’s saving graces is Harry Potter, and I have beef with J.K. Rowling, but I totally understand why and how that franchise empowered the imaginations of an entire generation (heck my step-dad read it before I did!) And the amount of time and space between the climax and the resolution seemed really fast, but even so, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book.
It also ends on a cliffhanger! The journey isn’t over and now Rosie has two characters she has to save, including one she thought was lost forever.
There are two more books in the series and I can’t wait to read them. But first, I have a mountain of picture books to wade through.
Until then! Happy Friday the 13th!
