Review: Rise of the Wadjet Witch by Juliet C. Obodo

Title: Written in the Sky: Rise of the Wadjet Witch
Author: Juliet. C. Obodo
Series: N/A
Pages: 287
Publisher: Orange Light Press
Date Published: February 21st 2012
Format: eBook
Genre: Paranormal (Adult)
Source: Provided by RABT

Synopsis:
 All Memphis Holland wanted was to quit smoking. The pressure to complete her dissertation on Ophiuchus the lost astrological sign and receive her PhD in Astrophysics has been high. She visits a hypnotherapist to rid her of her cravings and instead is given the ability to see the future and to teleport. To anyone else this would be a wonderful trade, but she doesn’t see it that way. These strange new powers and the fact that there is a serial killer piercing women in their Third Eye chakras and leaving their bodies all over New York City has her highly stressed. Yoga doesn’t help and neither does her new position at Sign of The Times, a New Age newspaper run by her best friend Jill. Her mysterious coworker Lawrence, the reporter covering the murders, puts her even more on edge. He is nothing but kind yet there is just something about him; he has this uncanny ability to know exactly what she’s thinking.Her astrological predictions for the newspaper are well received. But the eerily accurate personal horoscopes that are sent to her by an anonymous astrogirl88 are not. As the secrets and predictions from astrogirl88 unfold Memphis is led down a dangerous path to find out who she really is and the unsettling truth that her destiny may have already been written for her.

My Review:
First of all I want to address the cover. I typically don't review covers because I try not to judge books based on them. After all, it tends to be the publisher who makes the cover decisions and they sometimes don't even read the books they are promoting. However, one of my pet peeves is when the cover seems deliberately misleading or doesn't accurately represent the characters or story. Then I feel like I've been tricked and lied to.  I actually only agreed to read this book because I thought the cover was so beautiful/wonderful/etc. You think it's going to be mysterious and about some maybe Irish or Celtic witch child... but then as I started reading the story...I got confused. The main character is a black woman. Actually a mixed race, ethnic medley of pretty much everything. But..but...the girl on the cover is a...white redhead...

I definitely felt like all confuzzled like poor Karen. But as the book went on I was reminded of Karen for different reasons. Memphis is SO dumb. She's like Karen, only stoned out of her mind, and completely incapable of understanding anything without having it personally explained, in detail, for about 10 pages.

I won't lie. Memphis bugged me. I will be very frank. She is a dumb fucking bitch.  If I'm being completely honest she pissed me off so much that I'd kind of like to punch her. Hard. Possibly with iron knuckles on.  But you know what, I couldn't do that. Because Memphis is an idiot. And you can't hit dumb people for being dumb no matter how much you would like to...You can just feel sorry for them. And boy do I feel sorry for Memphis. Or should I call her Memy? (gag) like her ex-boyfriend does. The ex-boyfriend is already on my shit-list for that complete travesty of a nickname, but later you find out he's been having a relationship behind Memphis's back. And guess what? Memphis walked in on while he was hooking up with another dude. Now finding out about your ex's Gay Lover would be upsetting for anyone, but what does the idiot Memphis think about as she rushes from the room in embarrassment? If the gay guy is better at giving blow jobs than she is.

WHAT the ever-loving fuck? Is that seriously the biggest question on your mind when you walk in on your ex getting blown by another man? Really? You pathetic wench, I honestly feel sorry for you. If you are that insecure in your blow-job abilities perhaps you should practice on a banana or something...or maybe you should be thinking things like why you're boyfriend used you as a beard for three years? Or what effect this run-in will have on your career? I don't know...it just seemed petty and stupid for her to be so overly concerned with who's better at fellatio when so much drama is going on in her life.

Not only is Memphis dumb...but so is every other character. Memphis's best friend Jill is a psychic, yet somehow she's never heard of Chakras in her entire 24 years of life. Again, really? Maybe like...some CEO I could believe having not heard of Chakras...but a psychic, who's career involves the New Agey and mysterious? Even my brother, a self-professed dumb Frat boy, has heard of Chakras. It's like Obodo thought that her audience had the comprehension level and life experience of a 5 year old and had to explain EVERY.LITTLE.THING. Even things that are common knowledge to anyone who made it through middle school.

Then there was the writing style. I appreciated learning about astronomy. The only thing I know about it is that I'm a Gemini. So I waas kind of excited to learn about something mysterious and cool yet scientific...for the first paragraph. But after page FIFTEEN with nothing more than info dumping about mythology, astronomy, etc. I was ready to drop the book right there and DNF it. I literally felt like I just sat through a semester of lectures about the subject. There was no plot, no character dialogue...just straight info dumping about constellations. I was bored, irritated, and maybe a little ..

I felt like I was being punched in the face by the fist of knowledge. I can just picture Juliet C. Obodo taking an astronomy book and just smacking her readers repeatedly with it, because to be perfectly honest, that's what reading her book felt like. It got to the point where it crossed the boundaries into plagiarism. It wasn't that she plagiarized her story, but there was just so much info dumpage that I almost wondered if it was copied word for word out of some textbook or astronomy book. The same thing went for the myths and legends that were mentioned. Obviously it's hard to make a story that's been around for a millennium sound new and original. But come on. There was no attempt to integrate it into the story. No attempt to make it relevant to the characters or even attempt to discuss it. Nothing. It got to the point where I was all....

If that wasn't bad enough, I was also mildly offended quite a few times while I was reading. Nothing so much that I would, say, ban Obodo's books for being inappropriate or anything, but there were just a few moments where I would get upset at some flip phrase or some ridiculous assumption about people that seemed so thoughtless. For example...the main character of the story is in her mid twenties. 24 or 26 I believe. And she and her friend sit there bitching about how guys who are 30 are "old farts". Really? I'm 22 and I tend to date men who are in their late twenties and early thirties. Guys I consider to be old farts have to at least be my father's age...not FOUR YEARS older than I am. Is this lady crazy? Not everyone gets together with someone within a few years of their own age. If she thinks that 4 years older is an "old fart" well...she's got a lot of growing up to do. Other mildly offensive things that popped up were weird stereotypes about certain kinds of people. And I quote "She sure is a lightweight for a British girl."...what?...So are British people supposed to be heavy drinkers?

 Not only is that a stereotype, but it's a stereotype that doesn't even make sense. To my knowledge, British girls aren't any more inclined to drink than Americans, or Austrailians, or French people. At least if you want to make some blatant stereotype of a class, race, group of people, etc. make it somewhat relevant and true. Like frat boys. No one would have complained about the drunken frat boy stereotype. Some stuff was just plain idiotic like the British room mate's insistence on calling boys "lads" and "laddies". One. That's the Irish. You're mixing up your stereotypes again Juliet C. Obodo. Two. British people go around saying "lad and lasses" about as much as the French say "Sacre Bleu" and Australians say "Good day Mate". Not. Really. At. All.

Honestly the thought of picking up the book after about 3/4 of the way into it was painful. I would stare at my kindle...just willing myself to turn it on and slug my way through another chapter. Instead I was more in the mood to do this...

Obviously, Written in the Sky: Rise of the Wadjet Witch was not my cup of tea. I believe that there are some books out there that never really should have been published. This is one of them. I honestly hesitated to post this review because I don't want to encourage anyone to read it. My hope is that it will quietly head over to that place where bad books go to die and will be forgotten. I would not read this book again if it was a choice between that and gouging my eyes out with a spoon. At least then I could listen to decent audio books and would never again have to suffer through something as god-awful as the Wadjet Witch.