Something people who have never been poor don’t understand is how few options you have. For years, Katrell’s whole existence has revolved around doing whatever she can to keep the lights on, food in the fridge, and a roof over her and her mother’s heads. The thing about being in survival mode is that it is all-consuming. She knows things are bad and getting worse, and she doesn’t know what to do about it. It’s not that Katrell is oblivious or obtuse she’s a child and she’s scared. She repeatedly refuses to acknowledge very obvious and basic facts, even when rejecting them means ignoring what is literally happening directly in front of her. At first, I was frustrated by Katrell’s intense obliviousness to her increasingly dire circumstances. Soon she finds herself stuck between a rock and a hard place: either she stops raising Revenants and gets sucked back into the cycle of poverty, or she keeps going and pays the ultimate price for her magic.
The living come after Katrell, too, as Gerald and her mother try to turn her into a cash cow and some dangerous criminals decide to make an example out of her. A strange sickness creeps over Katrell, and the Revenants, as Will takes to calling them, start terrorizing people in town. But with each body she brings back, the more complicated things become. For the first time in her life, she’s not living hand to mouth and even has a decent nest egg for the future. With one desperate act, Katrell’s mysterious magical powers evolve into something new – and deadly.īefore, she earned chump change, but now Katrell’s pulling in thousands at a time as she resurrects dead loved ones for their grieving families. After Gerald, the latest in a long line of her mother’s terrible boyfriends, kills Conrad in a fit of rage, Katrell accidentally raises his body instead of just his spirit. By writing a short letter to the dead, she can bring their spirit back for a short conversation.
On the side she makes extra cash acting as a medium for the living who can’t let go of the dead. When she’s not working a crappy job at a burger joint, sleeping through her sophomore year classes, or avoiding being at home, she’s with Will, her bestie, and her oversized teddy bear of a dog, Conrad. Katrell is our protagonist, and she can communicate with the dead. “I’m painting Will’s nails when she asks me to talk to her dead grandma.” Jessica Lewis opens her debut young adult fantasy Bad Witch Burning with a killer hook that, once you have finished the novel, you realize is packed with worldbuilding tidbits.
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