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Witch & Wizard series by James Patterson (Sort of, I hear the series was consisting of ghost-writers)

Wisty and Whit Allgood were normal teens leading normal lives, until late one night they are awoken to soldiers stomping down the street, busting into their home and taking them away under orders of The One Who Is The One.
They are allowed only 2 personal belongings to bring: A drumstick to Wisty by their mother, and a magic book to Whit by their father.

Neighbor turning against neighbor for suspected magic, kids thrown into torturous institutions, people burning children at the stake for suspicion of witchcraft for being different, all religions are banned and their places of worship destroyed, individualism outlawed. All under the control of The One.

And it's up to Wisty, Whit, and other kids forming a rebellion to take on The One and change the minds of the people.

First three books are pretty good. Makes me think of the classic fantasy struggle of "Mages are being shunned and killed by the higher ups and people who believe in those higher ups, but set in the modern day.

But unless you want to, I suggest finishing your reading at the 3rd book. It honestly could've been fine as a trilogy. You can still go ahead and read the other 2 books, but they don't feel the same and are the same rehashed plot.

Warning though:
3rd book, there's this guy called Pearce who assaults Whisty.
He doesn't r-word her, but he does force a kiss on her.

So, spoiler territory.

First off, I felt the rage of wanting to punch Byron so bad at first. But by the 3rd book, the little weasel grew on me.
Aside from his "Either we turn in your brother and run away together, or I unleash these tortured feral kids on all of us", in the first book, I kind of enjoyed his character. And his odd clinginess to Wisty did chill from that stuff somewhat later on. He is still a simp, through-and-through, but he becomes a more likeable character later. And I honestly find myself kind of liking Wisty's and Byron's relationship by the end, felt like it was open-ended: They could remain friends, or maybe later down the line they do get together?

I somewhat liked the little blooming romance between Whit and Janine somewhat. BUT I also did feel bad for Janine though because it felt like she was just the replacement for Whit's moved-on girlfriend.
By move-on, I mean his girlfriend, Celia, had been killed by The One and her spirit remained to help him. But at the end, she passed on to the other side.

Now, I DNF'd when I got to the 5th and final book. And that's something considering I'm usually easy to please and only DNF'd a book out of annoyance one other time in my life.
The first 3 were good, but the 4th was meh and I could barely get through the first act of the final book.

The 4th book, though meh, was still somewhat get-throughable. I was kind of confused on the ice kingdom. And Pearce randomly coming back felt almost like a retcon.

But the 5th book...
Ya, naw. I'm done. Dropped it.

Character growths were erased other than Byron (I'll get to that in a minute).

The character they were fighting so hard to save, along with other kids, in the 4th book was just killed off literally in the first two or three pages.

It's the same plot of "higher up wants to erase all magic and everyone else is completely against magic."
Except it's WORSE since the very people they keep sneering at was the one who SAVED THEIR BUTTS WITH THEIR MAGIC, DESPITE THE FACT THESE VERY PEOPLE HAVE BURNED LITERAL CHILDREN AT THE STAKE FOR BEING DIFFERENT
And the new leader is like "Ya, let's force every magic user to submit their magic or go to concentration camps." Like the bad guys before him.
Like, it makes me want to see Wisty and Whit have a villain arc because no matter how many times they risked their lives to save these people, they still get treated like trash because they have magic.

Wisty feels like she's just a teen who never grew out of her toddler phase.
And every emo boi who crosses her path not only happens to be a villain, but she always falls for. She's immature, literally uses her powers to turn everyone into cats against their will during a temper tantrum, backing the claim JUST argued to her that magic users can't control their magic rationally.

This new villain feels like...okay, think of Barb from the 2nd Trolls movie, and make her more edgy for young adults, and make her a boy. Immediately the vibes of this guy.
Literally, the introduction to this guy, Darius or whatever the f his name was, and his main base and group is "They live in a ruined toy factory and all the broken and unfinished toy pieces look like cool decorations, his crew sees him as their scary boss, and he has this seductive girl on his hip waiting for him in a silky green dress until he kills her out of anger."
I can't make this up. I felt my insides cringe.

And at this point, I stopped.
And looking at reviews, I'm so happy I did.

Pearce and The One make a reappearance somehow. Pearce not only should've remained dead after the 3rd book, but literally should NOT come back after the 4th book.

Celia somehow makes a return despite moving on to the afterlife (was already bad enough how she sort of did in the 4th book)

I hear there's a random aunt included (and like...where the f was she the rest of the series?)

Byron ends up SACRIFICING HIMSELF in the end (which is a goddam shame because despite his actions in the first book, he grew on me and is the only one with any sense of steady character growth.)
Like, him dating a new girl who happens to have red hair like Wisty showed he's trying to give her space knowing they'll never be together, him wanting to help more, be less of a double-agent. That's all fine. I love how he grew from "double-agent who once said 'love me and sacrifice your brother or this gonna be a murder suicide, baby' whiney boy" guy to a "He's now got a different girl for a girlfriend and is a sort of police who tries to protect their city and is more mature" guy.
So to just...kill him off? The best character (imo) through the series? Fuk no-
He won't die if I don't read that he dies!

And the thing I said about burning kids at the stake?
That's another thing that was off about the last 2.
Yes, there was plenty of anti-magic. But it was really these people being anti-different in general. Anti-art. Anti-music. Anti-learning. Anti-fun. Anti-development.
The last 2 books are just..."People see magic users as bad".

So no thanks for that final book, I pushed myself through the 4th book. It was pisssing me off so much, And after finding these spoilers (even scanned through and was able to confirm some), I will not be finishing the final book.

So my rating?

8 starts for the first 3 books:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

4 and a half for the 4th book:
⭐⭐⭐⭐/

0 for the last. 1 star if I have to rate it any.

Do I recommend this?
The first three books, yes. The other two? That's up to you, but I wouldn't waste my time if I knew how they were.

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