The Changeover by Margaret Mahy: book review

Book review

The Changeover by Margaret Mahy (1984)

I'd like to be able to change over, from the ordinary to the extraordinary, like Laura Chant.

I'd like to be able to step from one boring, mundane world into another world where witches invite me over their threshold and tempt me to eat their bread and salt so that I will come back again another time.

And I think I would probably enjoy discovering my supernatural power, so that I could vanquish my mortal enemies with a venomously loaded curse:

"Stamp, your name is to be Laura. I'm sharing my name with you. I'm putting my power into you and you must do my work. Don't listen to anyone but me." She thought for what seemed like a long time, though it was really only a single second, and in that time, oddly enough, the picture of the old, whistling kettle at home came into her mind. "You are to be my command laid on my enemy. You'll make a hole in him through which he'll drip away until he runs dry. As he drips out darkness, we'll smile together, me outside, you inside. We'll " (she found her voice rising higher and growing a little hysterical) " ... we'll crush him between our smiles." She looked up at the reflected witches and said nervously, "Is that enough?"
"Quite enough," Winter said, and behind the fine lace of her age, Laura saw a reflection of Sorry's wariness.
"Terrific!" exclaimed Sorry. "Chant, can I be on your side? I'd hate to be your enemy."

Laura's enemy has laid his mark on her little brother and is sucking the life out of him, slowly and remorselessly. And while her brother lies in his hospital bed dying, Laura goes to the only person she knows who could possibly help - Sorenson Carlisle. For with her special sensitivity Laura has spotted the mysterious Sorenson Carlisle, School Prefect, for what he really is. He really is a witch.

But the evil that has been visited on Laura's brother is ancient and overwhelmingly strong. Not even Sorenson and his mother and grandmother working together can lift the curse. They are going to need Laura's help too, to distract the enemy and then pounce ...

Laura is good at distraction. She can distract her enemy, and she distracts Sorenson all the time too:

Laura did take a deep breath and realised as she did so that Sorry was not watching her face, but the rise and fall of the breath under her old pyjama jacket. He sighed himself, met her eyes, and gave her a smile both deprecating and conciliatory.
"You did invite me in," he pointed out, "even though you knew I was a mixed blessing."

I love this book. The only problem with it is that it is hard to turn the pages quickly enough to keep up with the story. Two kinds of magic here - the supernatural struggle between Laura and her enemy, and the entirely natural attraction between Laura and Sorenson.

Highly recommended!

What you say

What do you think about ‘The Changeover’?

Jill, girl, age 15, from United States, on 7th June 2007. Rating: 9/10

I love this book!..I'm all into the whole "Supernatural" things and it had that..and to top it off it threw in Romance..Love it! I just picked it out in the library to have a book for my English class but I got into it and now its one of my favorite books! Its Awsome!

Kimberly Stanley, girl, age 36, from Brooklyn, United States, on 1st December 2005. Rating:

I read this book when it came out and I was a teenage girl. The greatest compliment that I can give to this book is that twenty-two years later, I still reread it sometimes--and I still enjoy it. I can't say that about too many of my childhood books. The Changeover is rare in the sense that back in mid-80s, there weren't too many books about magic and the supernatural targeted toward girls. This was a genre that I adored and could never get enough of back then. So this novel was instant favorite. There are certain books that you read when you are young that shape the kind of person that you become--not necessarily in a large way, but in subtle way. The Changeover was one of these books for me. I didn't realize it when I read the book at fourteen, but The Changeover is a metaphor for changing from childhood to adulthood--from becoming a girl to becoming a woman. And this book really captures that--all the insecurities and the fears, and even the pleasure that you feel as a girl in your own new-found, womanly power. I guess this book appealed to me so much because it made me feel better about a lot of the things I was going through at 14: I wasn't just getting older--I was becoming a different being. I have read other comments about this book and I agree with the reviewers that say they want a sequel. I still think about Laura from time to time--she and I were the same age when the book came out--and I often wonder what became of her and what type of woman she became.

Alessandra, girl, age 21, from Rome, Italy, on 20th November 2005. Rating: 10/10

The book is simple great. I read it for the first time when I was 14 and now I read it each years when springs come. The characters are charming, the witches, laura and most of all Sorry! Each girl is a little witch inside, the magic of the book it's also that! I love it! :)

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