Last Apprentice 1

 
If you've seen the movie Seventh Son, this is the book series it's based on. Only the movie, as much as it was flawed, actually had a more engaging plot than this. 

The book follows Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, during his first month or so as the apprentice to a "Spook." A Spook is a necessary but feared position in this fantasy world. He goes around dealing with supernatural assailants like boggarts, witches, etc. People aren't very nice to Spooks though, so it's a lonely, solitary job. 

Gregory is the Spook and he's a decent enough character, though he leaves Tom on his own too much. He's lost several apprentices so you'd think he would know better by now but no. 

Tom himself is your typical bumbling, incompetent lead male dealing with a new world, only he's not nearly as endearing as Harry or Percy. His main problem is that he's very weak-willed and that makes him harder for me to like. 

Tom can be endearing sometimes though, like when he wants help from the housebound boggart and offers it every Sunday off once he becomes the Spook. Or when he helps Alice repeatedly even though he knows she's a witch. 

He is definitely in over his head so I can make some allowances but he also spends an awful lot of time wanting the Spook or his mom to tell him what to do. 

So Mother Malkin is the main villain of the book and Alice and Bony Lizzie are characters but none have even half the power they do in the movie. They're way cooler there. None of the other awesome-looking antagonists are in the book. And Mother Malkin really isn't very threatening at all. 

It's a fast read and the problems are solved pretty quickly. It feels like it's too light, especially after all the drama of the movie, though a lot of that was because they aged-up Tom. The book does have a lot more of Tom's family, which I liked because his mom is a great character, but the older brother is kind of a dick and his wife, who starts out nice, ends up being a dick, too. 

I'm looking forward to seeing Tom grow up and get more confident in his new skills. They also didn't do the witch mom reveal like in the movie so I wonder when that will happen. I think I have the first four and then #8. I got a bunch of them from Paperback Swap. So I'll likely start #2 later tonight.