House of Ivy and Sorrow by Natalie Whipple

Josephine "Jo" Hemlock lives with her grandmother. People say that a witch lives in their house. Actually, two witches live there. Grandma has been taking care of Jo since her mother died from a curse. They are the last of the Hemlock witches, but still one of the major families.

Jo tries to keep her normal life separate from her magical one. Her two best friends, plus her potential new boyfriend, don't know anything about her witchy side. Things get complicated when the strange man shows up.

He is looking for Jo, but she avoids him. She can see that he has a very dark curse attached to him. The man is very persistent to get close to her. She finds out that this man is...her father.

Background info! Witches are all female, and women are the only ones who have magic. They need men to make new babies, but they end up leaving the fathers. Upholding the family line is more important than personal relationships.

Surprisingly, Grandma lets Jo's father into their lives (After getting rid of the curse). She also lets Jo tell one of her best friends about their witchiness. Unfortunately, the reason that she is being so lenient is because Grandma has the curse. She is dying, and it's super sad. Jo and her witch relatives (Including her adorable cousin) have to band together to try to destroy the curse before it destroys them.

This was a cool take on witchcraft. When the witches performed a spell, they had to offer something to get magic. The bigger the magic was, the bigger the sacrifice needed. They would need to offer hairs, fingernails, sense of taste, etc. I read a review of this book that mentioned how Teen books featuring witches are meant to counter against so many books that focus on weak female characters being saved by strong male vampires/werewolves/etc. This is definitely a good thing. I hope we see a lot more strong female characters, whether they are witches or not.

I received my copy of House of Ivy and Sorrow from Edelweiss, courtesy of HarperTeen. It's available for purchase now.

Transparent by Natalie Whipple

"I'm invisible. I can be whoever I want. Why in the world would I want to be myself?"

The back story of Transparent is actually more interesting than the book. This drug was developed that had a strange side effect on the children of those who took it: they developed powers. Now, the drug is an illegal substance, sold by illegal organizations to those hoping to strengthen their powers.

One unlucky benefactor of the powers is Fiona. She was born invisible, so nobody, not even her, knows what she looks like. Her father is the head of a large crime syndicate and uses her as a weapon. He has super-woman-attraction powers, which he uses to compel his many wives and daughters into doing his bidding. Fiona's mother ran away with her many times in the past. After she is assigned to kill a rival drug lord's young daughters, Fiona's mother tries again. After so many half-hearted attempts, Fiona doubts that they will be gone for long.

The pair flee to a small town in the rival's territory, predicting that her father would never look for them there. They actually buy a house, and Fiona even enrolls in school. Most of the kids treat her as a freak, but she ends up making friends with other kids with powers. For the first time, the invisible girl has an actual life.

Transparent was a pretty good story. It made me think of invisibility in a new light, like how Fiona couldn't shave her legs or underarms because she couldn't see them. (Now that I'm thinking about it, she probably had a unibrow as well.) She could seriously annoy me a lot, but I understand where she is coming from. Fiona was naturally suspicious of people, especially her mother and brother. Given what has happened to her in the past, I understand why. Basically, it had potential, but I thought it was just okay.

I received my copy of Transparent from Edelweiss, courtesy of HarperTeen. It's available for purchase now.