Customer Reviews

Changeling Places (Charmed)

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have mixed feelings about this book. I had low expectations based on the confused-pun title but was surprised to discover that the author knew the difference between a changeling and a shape-shifter. But the writing started off bad and seemed to pay little attention to the Charmed universe.

The book opens with a bounty hunter appearing in an elfin village. She is there to take the babies. She says she does not ask questions about her assignments and does not know why she has been asked to take them. Within a single page she reveals the reason (huh?). From there we move to more familiar territory as Piper is aching to get back to work now that her baby has been born. With Paige's help, daycare is attempted but things don't work out. Eventually the sisters notice patterns and coincidences and set out to solve the problem

This is one of the shortest books I have read in a long time (150 pages). With very little room for plot complications I was quite surprised to find the Charmed ones out and out refusing to help misled innocents. They not only refuse but do so angrily. They only go back to help after Leo gets back with orders from the Elders. This is like an alternate-universe Charmed where the characters look the same but have different personalities. There are some good Charmed books out there but this is not one of them.

Micol Ostow has serious writer's block here. Her writing is not creative, not funny, the plot lacks action, magic and wit. Everything goes very easy in this book and I found it was VERY, VERY, VERY long-winded. The action comes only at, guess what Chapter 6! Yada-yada-yada for 5 chapters and a prologue, until finally something remotely dangerous pops up. The ending also falls short. Micol's spells do not rhyme throughout the book and my guess is that she got so fed up she resorted to 'The Power of Three will set us free!' On TV, that spell would prove a good change. In the book, it was tacky and boring. She tries to spice things up with a 'Wyatt power boost' but that fell short too. The demon hardly showed any powers and sounded more like a grouchy, grumpy dad who found the thief that stole his china. Sigh... What happened to great Charmed?

This book is officially one of the worst books in the entire Charmed book series. The story lacks plot, suspense, thrilling action, sudden twists and turns you would find in most Charmed books. And I definitely believe that Micol Ostow must not have put her heart and soul into writing this somewhat-cross-between-a-short-story-and-novel. She is a good author (for readers below 12, that is) but her story fails to deliever, in the regular high standards and expectations for a typical good Charmed novel: (think authors like Diana G.Gallagher, Paul Ruditis and Laura J.Burns, for examples of good Charmed authors).

Back to the book. The starting was a great big bore, with an unnecessary waste of writing space about Piper having a career and having to be a mom of an infant boy.... TOO much exaggeration. Secondly, Wyatt not being his usual self and acting like he was possessed or something. Soon, nearly half the babies in San Francisco are behaving UNLIKE themselves. Turns out to be an unfair situation of the elves gathering up an army for an underworldly army by a demon named Lexor, due to the orders of a bounty hunter.


Doesn't quite make sense? Yup. I think Micol must have been desparate to write something that she goes to the extents of a situation beyond VERY unfair and downright ridiculous. The part where she wrote that the Charmed ones agreed to help them kick the demon's butt within a day, but turns out his bounty hunter needed the babies urgently so the elves put the blame on the Charmed ones, claiming that they were the ones who are a threat to this predicament, and puts Piper's life in danger.

Hmmm... Like I said, its kind of beyond human thinking to put this kind of wastage.

Unless you are desperate for a Charmed read, do yourself a favor and give this book a miss.

I have loved all the Charmed books I've read up until this point. This book was good in the sense that I am glad they have finally writen a book about baby Wyatt, but there was just something about it that I didn't particularly like. One thing that made me a bit mad when i read this book was that there was a lot of spelling mistakes and some of the sentences didn't make sense....it was like the editors didn't go back through the book to check for mistakes or errors. But besides that, i think the book had a fairly good plot with the human babies being switched with the elf babies and so on. I really do think it was a good book, a very good book, but it could have done without the spelling errors...

This story is probably one of the lamest, dullest, suspense-lacking and puzzling Charmed books I've ever read... Micol Ostow's contribution to the Warren Witches (The Crucible) was just as bad. As for Changeling Places, she yacks on and on about Piper being a working mom, pros and cons, with lots of irrelevant bits on "How a woman can manage a job and being a mom at the same time", "Are you sure you want to continue work, Piper?" and "Try balancing your time doing one thing at one time, Piper". Which is kinda unnecessary, in the Charmed universe. Then it turns out that babies are being swapped all over for beings unlike their usual personas, which turns out that a demon wants the offspring of the elves to be raised as an army for the underworld, only to offer human babies to the bounty hunter doing the dirty work for her master. There is no uniquenes in her writing, no sense of humor, and no distinctive "Micol Ostow" writing style to her stories. Its possible that she has read the better writing styles of other Charmed authors and try to rip it off as her own. I truly believe Micol could have written a much better book. Definitely one of the worst books in the series

When baby Wyatt starts acting strangely after spending time in day care, Piper suspects something is seriously wrong. Soon enough, the sisters learn that Wyatt has been replaced with a changeling. Indeed, it seems that the main characters have been replaced as well. Piper doesn't worry about Wyatt using his powers in day care, and, when they discover the deception, Leo, who does little but moralize about the dilemma working mothers face, seems barely concerned.
My main problem with this book is that everything is a little too easy. The sisters have no problem finding the elfin village, and the demons they vanquish barely put up a fight. The Elders, strangely enough to viewers of the series, even offer helpful information!
Still, it's a short book and may satisfy your Charmed appetite when the show is in reruns.

piper has decided that it is time to go back to work after having wyatt. the perfect solution seems to be to put him in a daycare that paige is working at as a temprary job.

but soon piper notices changes in wyatt's behavior. he cries all the time and he will barely eat. she wonders if this is a cause for concern or should she be looking deeper into the problem?

meanwhile at the daycare center, mothers are mysteriously pulling their babies out with little or no warning. paige's spider sense is up and she is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. it seems that the babies are being switched so some demon can make an army. can the charmed ones figure out how to defeat this demon before it is too late?

the book is a little too g rated for me. they have piper giving up a little too quickly when things don't go as planned. if all stay at home moms had that notion, thw workforce would definitley be in trouble. it is an ok book for all charmed fans desperate for something to read.