Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.comAfter I had finished reading the first book in this series, BRAS & BROOMSTICKS, I was sure that it couldn't get much better. Fortunately for me and everyone else reading the books, it does indeed get even better! FROGS & FRENCH KISSES is the continuation of the story of two sisters, Miri and Rachel, one who is a witch and one who isn't. Since the one with the powers is the younger sister, it makes for a fine story of sibling love, rivalry, and flying tricycles. When BRAS & BROOMSTICKS ended, Rachel was upset over blowing her chance with the love of her life, Raf. After standing him up to instead attend her father's wedding, she's ready for Miri to try another love spell. The spell works, but as is the case with most of Miri's spells, has a few unexpected side-effects. It turns out that the glove that was used to make Raf fall in love with Rachel didn't actually belong to Raf, but his older rother, Will. Rachel now has the adoring, lovable, great-kissing boyfriend she's always wanted--except he just happens to be the wrong brother. Rachel vows to turn Will free from the spell as soon as Prom is over. After all, she deserves to attend one school dance with a guy who professes his undying love towards her. Before she can get to Prom, though, Rachel has other things to worry about. Like that fact that Miri is trying to save everyone and everything on Earth, including whales, the homeless, orphans in Africa, and cows intended for the slaughterhouse. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that the cows she tries to rescue end up in the high-school gymnasium--the same place where the Prom was to be held. If you add in their mother's sudden addiction to magic, they've got quite a problem on their hands. Their mother, formally a non-practicing witch, has decided to jump back into the dating pool. Unfortunately, she's went a little overboard on how to do that, magically gaining a new wardrobe, highlighted roots, glamorous nails, and too many suitors to count. As Rachel tries to think up a way to save the Prom (which somehow turns out to involve a flat-screen television that will only play The Sound of Music and a Corvette that switches colors with a tricycle), Miri and Rachel both realize that messing with magic is serious business. Can the Prom be saved? More importantly, can their mother be saved before she totally goes off the magical deep end? Can Miri learn that using magic for good is one thing, but that trying to save the world single-handedly is another? Will Rachel figure out what she needs to do about Will, and about Raf? FROGS & FRENCH KISSES is the perfect follow-up to BRAS & BROOMSTICKS, and I can't wait for the next book in the series. It's great to watch Rachel and Miri interact and learn that using magic has serious consequences. The dialogue is funny, the characters all well-rounded and true-to-life, and the situations these sisters find themselves in are hilarious. A great read!
I think that this book is an okay book. So far I have only started reading this book and it is about this teenage girl named Rachel and she's a witch, well soon to become one. Her sister is already a witch who got the powers. Rachel wants to become a witch but her powers have yet to come.I find the character really anyoying because all she cares is about herself and the things she wants like clothes and boys. She takes her true friends for granted and she thinks that she can use magic to solve almost every problems.But she is wrong. She may be smart in Math but I think she is stupid in other areas in life such as common sense. It makes me think that she might not be able to handle the real world. I feel like I would not be able to trust her and I would most likely not be her friend if she was real because in the book she is a very self-centered girl. I think that Rachel should learn that she can't always have everything she wants. I kind of think that her powers not coming is a great idea because I think that if she does get her powers she would do selfish things and only care about herself and not help people who are in need. Other than that I think that Raf not calling her back is a good move because this would show her a taste of her own medicine. I think that the author is trying to teach us that life isn't easy and that dreams are different from reality.
What do You think about Frogs & French Kisses (2006)?
I read this back to back with the previous book from the trilogy. I enjoyed the two enough that I'll probably read the third one, but I'm not going to rush out and buy it in hardback -- I'll wait until used copies are available. This book was more predictable than the first in the series and I found the character development relatively thin. In a YA series, I always like plausible growth from the characters (Georgia Nicolson being the only tolerable exception that comes to mind) and didn't find it here -- what development there was felt predictable and forced rather than earned. Still, the spells were better used in this book than in the previous one and the discussion of the divorced parents was actually quite good in this book.
—Joanna
This review was originally posted on my blog LoveThyBook This is a sequel to Bras and Broomsticks which I loved, and yes I know it's for middle school kids or High School but I liked it, so there. I like witches, witchcraft anything that has to do with powers. So of course I loved this book. And of course like any series, the first one is the best, and eventually they aren't that good. The fire dies out and we are only left with a glimmer of what the story one was.Though hopefully not with these books.The story picks up only a couple weeks after the first book finished, so we get to see how everything ended and what was happening after the big embarrassment Rachel got herself into. Well she didn't learn her lesson that's for sure, she still goes and makes her sister do magic, for her own benefit, which in turn backfires, almost every time. She accidentally made Will fall in love with her. Will is Raf's brother, and she is in love with Raf. And that's what the book is about. I won't say more in case you haven't read it, or don't want to spoil the rest of the series.I liked this book, not as much as the first one, but enough to make me pick up the third one. Which I'm almost done with, and it's great, so check back soon for a review on that one.
—Weronika
Again, super cute, just like Bras and Broomsticks. Lots of over-the-top drama in the teen world, lots of hilarious escalations and schemes like, "If I go to school today everyone will laugh at me and I will cry and due to my teary, bleary vision I will accidentally step off the curb without noticing the school bus coming and get run over and will need to be hospitalized and be taken care of by a super hot doctor and everyone will feel bad for me and like me again and not make fun of me." I think what I like best about this book series is that Mlynowsky wrote it without any pretense. This book, just like the first, doesn't claim to be anything other than what it is --- from the cover artwork to the last sentence, both books proudly proclaim themselves to be silly stories about the hilarious trials of being a teen girl, with some magic thrown into the mix. The writing is obviously very juvenile because the story is told in first person by a 14 year old protagonist, BUT while the juvenile tone bothers me a lot in teen fiction when that fiction claims to send some sort of uber important message, (think Hunger Games) and then falls flat on the writing, in this series the immature language and sentence structure make sense and add to my enjoyment of the story (much like in the Wimpy Kid series.)I would recommend this series to: my mother who loves teen fiction and teen romance and Twilight, anyone who enjoyed the Wimpy Kid series and pretty much any female looking for something funny and easy to read.
—Nelly
