HEX

A girl trains to inherit her grandmother’s magic business in this debut YA novel from a children’s book author.

Robin West lives with her mother and Gram and attends River County Junior-Senior High in Franken, a small town where everybody knows everyone else. Robin plays field hockey and she’s good at art. But her best friend, Pita, is a Greek-American, and she and Robin don’t quite fit in with any of the groups at school: “Living in the spaces between the cliques is hard enough; if anyone found out about Madder business, I would just have to stop going to school completely.” Madder business is what Gram does, and Robin is only beginning to learn about it—the painting of hexes to help people in need of good fortune or protection. Gram wants Robin to be her apprentice. The girl is a natural and shows signs of becoming a powerful hexenmeister. But it’s tough to balance schoolwork and field hockey practice with Madder business (let alone a social life). And when a crazy preacher arrives in town, railing against hexes and denouncing the “witches” who make them, Robin has to contend not only with lost field hockey games, a martinet of an art teacher, and snooty class princess Melody Dwayne, but also a general upsurge of superstition and distrust. Can Robin carry on upholding the virtues her Gram has instilled, or will the town turn against her? Hodgkins (Do Seals Ever…?, 2017, etc.) writes in the first person and depicts a believable cast of characters, each recognizable but not clichéd. Robin herself is full of life. She has foibles, yet these haven’t been thrown in merely to create conflict and further the plot (which the author keeps realistic within the premise of Madder business). Robin is self-aware, empathic, conflicted, but rational, and her relationships with Pita and Gram are full of warmth. The dialogue flows, and Hodgkins delivers a tale that maintains its pace throughout. This leads to some key moments rushing past—the ending, for one—but the narrative pull is undeniable. YA readers should partake of Madder business as eagerly as if under a hex.

A heartening apprentice tale and a sound introduction to teenage issues and adult prejudices.