1 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
My Baby My Baby by Michael Charters is a fictional novel set in modern day England, written in the first person perspective of Susan Barnes, a witch who is dying from a rare terminal degenerative disease. Susan is not the stereotypical witch (no flying broomstick and magic potions). In fact, throughout the story, she questions her own claim to be a witch because she has yet to perform any magic. Her doctor has proclaimed that she has less than one hundred days to live. This ultimatum spurs her to obtain what she has desired for so long, a baby. How will Susan get a baby with only a few months to lives? Will she be able to use magic to heal herself? It would be convenient to simply urge you to read this book and find out the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, I would not recommend this book to anyone. Although the characters were very well developed, the ending was disappointing.
Susan became a witch by becoming a member of a Wicca cult. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “Wicca is a religion ...that affirms the existence of supernatural powers (as magic) and of both male and female deities…” From the very first page, Susan begins her insulting remarks about God. It doesn’t take long before she extends her insults towards Christians and Muslims. I believe that bashing these religious views is a major ‘turn off’ for many readers. Charters employed characters that claim to hold these religious views but are obviously not in tune with the truths that these religions preach.
Moreover, Charters’ writing style is extremely long-winded. I was tempted to skip pages filled with paragraphs that did not add to the plot. Susan rambled on and on in a very irritating and repetitive manner. The first sentence in the novel was, “I am dying very fast.” This led me to believe that I would be reading a fast-paced novel. This was not the case. My Baby My Baby has 29 chapters and it is almost 700 pages long. It would have been a more enjoyable read if it was not so long and slow paced.
I must admit that for its length there were little grammatical errors. However, the few mistakes that I did see were blatant errors that could have been easily removed with one more proofreading from a professional editor. The only formatting error that I identified was that the table of contents was at the end of the book.
In conclusion, I rate My Baby My Baby 1 out of 4 stars. I am not a fan of giving such low ratings. However, I cannot see myself recommending this novel to anyone.
******
My Baby My Baby
View: on Bookshelves
Like Jaime Lync's review? Post a comment saying so!
