I finished my first audiobook on Libby! The last time I listened to an audiobook was when I was a kid. This was back when audiobooks were on CDs. Audiobooks have obviously changed a lot and have become more accessible than ever. I rented several audiobooks from my library and quickly realized what I could and couldn’t listen to. If I listen to an audiobook, it has to be a book with a simple premise. Romance or YA are easy go-tos versus Fantasy with lots of world-building. I went through my Goodreads TBR and settled on The Babysitter’s Coven by Kate Williams as a good audiobook choice. The Babysitter’s Coven had an interesting premise, but I thought this book wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

Esme Pearl is a seventeen-year-old high school student who babysits for extra spending money. Esme and one of her best friends start a babysitting club to help get more babysitting jobs. While babysitting and attending classes, Esme has some weird things happen to her that she can’t explain. After learning that there might be a connection between the new girl at school and Esme’s mom, Esme knows more about why these events happened to her and what that means for her as a babysitter.

The Babysitter’s Coven is described as “Adventure in Babysitting meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer“. From what I read, I think this description is wrong. Instead, I’d say that if you plucked Raven from Teen Titans and had her start a babysitter’s club, that’s what this book was. The original comparison made me want to read this in the first place, so the fact that this book was not what I had hoped; contributed to why I didn’t enjoy this.

Since I read this as an audiobook, I found myself picking apart the writing more than if I had read the physical book. Esme is supposed to be seventeen, but the way she’s written, she talks like a middle schooler. She and her friends would say IDK and ASAP in sentences when talking to each other. Yikes. I am trying to remember if I was that cringy in high school. While I know I’m not the target audience for this book, there are YA books on my bookshelf I love to read even though I’m thirty. That said, if I were to read this when I was in high school, I probably would have loved it.

The Babysitter’s Coven was a cool concept on paper, but this did not work for me. This wouldn’t be a book I would re-read nor would it be a series I would continue with. I rated The Babysitter’s Coven two stars on Goodreads.