Book Arena -- A Well-Timed Enchantment by Vivian Vande Velde!

Persy: ...How do we even start without sounding like idiots?

Arty: Pfffft, we should sound like total idiots.

Persy: Okeydaisy! WELCOME TO THE BOOK ARENA, Y'ALL. How's that?

Arty: How about... I WUV OWIVER. That's even better.

Persy: Totsally. Now I'm just going to be making an effort to sound like an idiot the whole time.

Arty: That'd be awesome.

Persy: Ahem. Welcome to the Book Arena, where your favorite book bloggers will be discussing a book we've BOTH read (we won't go as far as to say we've both enjoyed/hated it). http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lftt05XjgG1qei9lto1_500.jpg Woah, look at this tree!

Arty: THAT IS SO EPIC.

Persy: I KNOW. But anyway. This week we'll be discussing A Well-Timed Enchantment by Vivian Vande Velde (one of my favorite authors)!

Arty: Quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, too.

Persy: A Well-Timed Enchantment starts in the present day with our young heroine, Deanna, having been forced to spend her summer in France.

Arty: Her only friend in France turns out to be Oliver, a black cat. Oliver's with Deanna when she stops by a secluded well - and manages to drop her watch into it.

Persy: To her alarm, the water inside the well begins to rise, and Deanna is pulled in! Oliver jumps after her, and the duo find themselves in an empty clearing...but suddenly it's not so empty.

Arty: Two very strange men inform Deanna that by dropping her watch into the well, she's put time itself in danger - the well is a time portal, and the watch has ended up somewhere in medieval France, where anyone might happen to pick it up.

Persy: Deanna is forced to retrieve her watch from history, but not alone. The two men transform Oliver into a human boy, to "help" her, but things only get more complicated as Oliver and Deanna try to adjust. Will she get her watch back before history is changed? Will Oliver be able to cope with being human? WILL THEY GET BACK THEIR OWN TIME INTACT!?!?!?!??!!

Arty: THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!! I mean, it was. Since I read it already, it's not anymore. It was a reeeally good ending...

Persy: Aaaaah, the suspense at the end was really good. Not so much in the beginning, but that's kind of the way all of VVV's books are (most of them anyway): slow beginning, amazing end.

Arty: Yeah, I'm starting to get that feel. But really, the beginning wasn't even that slow, since it had about a chapter of lead-up, and then BAM, she's falling the well and those two awesome elf/fair folk/whatever they are are explaining and then Oliver's a human and... I'm suddenly not sick of Deanna's issues anymore.

Persy: Heh, yeah. It's just not much like VVV's usual stuff, so I wasn't enjoying it a ton until the ending really started to kick in, and then I LOVED it. So rabid VVV fans might not enjoy this one as much.
I feel like some kind of lame talk show host...

Arty: XD
I liked it moderately except for Oliver... really, I was mostly reading it for him. HE WAS SO CUTE. I mean... he was such a cat. That can talk. It was just so cool... it got kind of rambly for a while, but whenever I started to get bored, Oliver did something adorable and I got reinterested.

Persy: I actually wasn't too interested in Oliver for a while, until I realized that he was still remarkably cat-like. VVV did a really good job of that. Oliver got better and better, but Deanna just got bearable, if you know what I mean.

Arty: Yeah, I was never overly interested in Deanna... she was just kind of there. I was very impressed with Oliver. I expected a snarky smart-alec, but then he acutally really WAS catlike, like you said, aaand it was just adorable. But I really liked the castle people, too. Leonard was hilarious.

Persy: Ooooh yes I LOVED them. Though that's one thing I really had to get into, because normally VVV's characters are more realistic rather than whimsical and fun, if you know what I mean. But once I'd embraced the general tone of A Well-Timed Enchantment, I really liked everyone in the castle.

Arty: Yeah, since I haven't read as much stuff by her, it was probably easier for me to like it... I haven't really gotten into her 'feel' so I wasn't expecting anything. Except it being really fun.

Persy: ...I can't think of much else to say, except to mention that MY COPY IS SIGNED.

Arty: Pffft, lucky.
I think this might work better if we Book Arena books that one of us dislikes... then we'd be all cuh-razy defense and offense and stuff...

Persy: Yeah really, 'cause this is going nowhere. We're both just agreeing with each other.

Arty: Preeeetty much.
Soo... that's pretty much that? Read the book, 'cause it's really fun once you get to the end? And it's hard to find a book that we both really like, so you know it's got to be good...

Persy: Yeah, really... SO tune in this weekend for a review by Arty, and look forward to our next BOOK ARENA when we'll actually argue about a book!

Arty: Which should be REALLY fun!

Persy: So...are we done then?

Arty: Yeah, i think so... geez, now I REALLY feel like a talk show host.

--Persy and Arty