Review: Bras & Broomsticks

Bras & Broomsticks by Sarah Mlynowski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was an extremely fun and super funny read (or, listen, because I audiobook-ed it), and just an all around good time. Bras and Broomsticks is about Rachel, a freshman in high school, and her quest to become an A-lister in school with the help of her younger sister’s newly awakened witch powers. Because she comes from a family of witches. You get it.

As you might have gathered from the nature of her quest, Rachel is super immature, since she’s, you know, 14 years old. So I didn’t mind her immaturity one bit! I actually really enjoyed it because it made her feel super realistic and natural, unlike a lot of other books *cough* John Green *cough* that have their teenagers talk and act like astrophysicists. It also wasn’t like the bulk of other other books that demean and treat their teenagers like idiots and have them do stupid things in order to further the plot, under the guise of, “Well they’re teenagers, and teenagers are dumb so what do you expect???”

Rachel is smart, and anything questionable that she did had very clear reasoning and intentions behind it so that I understood where she was coming from. I never facepalmed or got angry about anything because she was such a realistic character in that I could easily see any 14 year old acting in the same way. This does not mean I approved of or agreed with all her decisions, but they all made sense, and I liked that a lot.

(view spoiler)[Speaking of decisions I did not agree with… I felt so bad for Jennifer!! Since the beginning I never really saw what they disliked about her, like they said she was evil but she never really acted evil. She nagged them a lot, but everything she nagged them about made sense, like for Miri to not bite her nails. She was acting like a mother, which I guess the girls are not used to because their actual mother is too lax. It was sad when they still disliked her even after they saw how nice and good intentioned she actually is, and I felt so sad for her when her fiance called off the wedding.

This said, I can still see where the girls were coming from. Their behaviour does not make sense from an adult point of view, but I can easily see any kid disliking their soon-to-be stepmother on pure principal alone and finding any excuse to demonize her. I also personally know what it is like to go your whole life not being nagged about something, and then feeling offended when someone has the audacity to nag you about it. And presented with the opportunity to get their divorced parents back together, honestly, like Rachel said, it’s a child’s dream come true. So I did not mind their behaviour even though I disagreed with it. (hide spoiler)]

This was a fantastically enjoyable book, I highly recommend it. If you’re not in the target demographic but are someone who can understand the characters and not come to it from a high-and-mighty perspective, or you ARE the target demographic (tweens), you’ll have a great time like I did. I tried to find something, anything, that I didn’t like about this book, and I couldn’t do it. So: 5 stars it is!


Some Backstory to this and Future Reviews
When I was a wee little girl (maybe around 9-10 years old) I was gifted the book Parties and Potions, and upon beginning to read it I quickly realized that it was actually the fourth book in a series (aka this series). Nonetheless, this knowledge didn’t stop me from reading it upwards of around 5 times over the coming years. You could say I enjoyed it quite a lot. Despite that, wee lady me never picked up the earlier books in this series because I was turned off by the crass words in their titles, such as “bras” *gasp* and “french kisses” *faint*. I was quite scandalized and wanted nothing to do with those titles.

Flash forward a lot of years to now. I was cleaning out my bookshelves and getting rid of all the books of my youth that, though they contained good memories, I knew I would never read again and were therefore only taking up room. Series such as Junie B. Jones, Dear Dumb Diary, Watchers, Groovy Girls Sleepover Club and other miscellaneous books had to go. But when I got to my dear old friend Parties and Potions, I knew I not only had a keeper, but an idea. And so now here I am, years later, finally starting this series from the top!

Since I read the last book in this series, I do know some spoilers, but honestly not much because I barely remember anything from all my re-reads those many years ago. For people who have finished this series, here’s what I remember: (view spoiler)[I know that Rachel gets her own powers at some point either right before or at the beginning of the fourth book, and then goes to some magic school or something? I'm finding it hard to believe that the author actually waited that long to give Rachel powers, though. I also remember that going into the fourth book she had recently acquired a new boyfriend, but I don't remember who he is. (hide spoiler)] Yeah, not much. Though I won’t talk about what I know until it gets revealed in the story, to avoid saying spoilers.


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