supercheesegirl

Book 1 of the Charlie Bone series. It's a total Harry Potter knockoff--young Charlie suddenly finds himself possessed of mysterious magical abilities and spirited off to a crazy school--but it's quite well-done, and there's enough to make it really different and interesting in its own right.

For one thing, the battle between good and evil is depicted in different terms. In HP, Harry needs to defeat Voldemort, who is the embodiment of all evil; for Charlie, though, there's an emphasis on the balance between good and evil, which I think is interesting. Of the magically endowed in Charlie's world, half tend to be good and half tend to be evil, and that's the way it's always been. Charlie's just an ordinary kid, but because of his powers he's drawn into the fray, and when his mom gives him the choice to leave his school, he chooses to go back, to keep the balance, and because he's needed. I like that approach.

Anyway, this was a reread for me, but since I've never read past book 2 (which was long enough ago that it was before I was logging books) and my mom has 3 and 4, I wanted to start the series over again. And they're quick, and I wanted something light yesterday. I've got another something light today, and then next up I think will be some more Virginia Woolf.