To whom it may concern

It's almost Thanksgiving, which means it's the perfect, most appropriate time to talk about Hocus Pocus.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

(Look, I had a lot going on in October so I'm just desperately clinging onto Halloween until Thanksgiving)

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

I have seen the movie Hocus Pocus roughly a bazillion times.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Part of this is because I'm an Eerie, Indiana stan going way back, so it was cool to see another supernatural story with Omri Katz in it.

But part of it was because of KMart and Little Caesar's.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

For a part of my childhood-cum-early adolescence, we lived up the hill from a KMart that had a Little Caesar's in it, and that Little Caesar's had a really good deal on extremely cheap pizza every Monday.

So we went to KMart every Monday and ate really cheap pizza.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

It helped that we all (me, my mom, and my younger brother) all liked Little Caesar's. I'll still take a Little Caesar's pizza over Domino's or Papa John's in a heartbeat. Don't @ me.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

It *didn't* help that KMart has been kind of a sad place to be in for the last twenty-five years at least, and that we'd spend an hour there being usually the only people in that corner of the building who weren't paid to be. Happily, I rarely saw classmates.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Anyway, the Little Caesar's in the KMart had a TV with a built-in VCR. They had three VHS tapes: A Bug's Life, Jingle All the Way, and Hocus Pocus.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

So we cycled through those, week after week. We rarely even had to rewind or fast forward; who else was sitting watching movies at KMart?

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Anyway, so I saw Hocus Pocus a lot. It is, in fact, the only one of those movies that I own on DVD, and is the only one I've gone back to since ending the Monday KMart tradition.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

I decided this year, because I bought it on Kindle at some point, to read the new Hocus Pocus novel sequel.

(It's bundled with a retelling of the movie which I skipped past, because I can quote most of it.)

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

On paper, it's kind of everything I'd want out of a Hocus Pocus sequel. It's 'the next generation,' it's a more diverse cast, it's addressing some of the darker aspects of the history that the movie...didn't. It's built around a gay teen girl & her crush who may have witch powers

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

But...hoo boy

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Did you know that Disney owns this property? If not, you might be able to guess by how nearly every costume in this book set at Halloween is a specifically named Disney franchise character. People dressed as Woody and Buzz Lightyear, reposts of Jyn Erso content.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

I don't know why it stands out quite so much. Maybe it's because I'm used to YA novels being more coy about this stuff. "Cartoon characters" or "Star Wars characters" or coming up with something that's legally-distinct-but-you-know-what-it's-supposed-to-be

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

It does that thing that sequels do, where everything that was memorable about the previous thing gets brought back a bunch and it doesn't land quite as well. Sarah said "amok" three times? Now she does it with other words too.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

The witches lost their brooms and had to get substitutes? Now one's riding a stolen leaf blower. And then they lose those and have to find more brooms.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

For a book written about Kids Today, there's a bunch of stuff that works, and a bunch that really doesn't. Like all the cutesy comments where "witch" replaces that word that rhymes with it. The book's tagline is "Witch, Please."

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

They play with a "spirit board" (suddenly avoiding the brand name) that's occasionally described as old, but also has "Hey Ghoul Hey" and "Ghoul, Bye" instead of "Hello" and "Goodbye" on it. Which...okay, I'm on board with half of that.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

I went to find out who the author was, since they're not listed on the cover, but it turns out that "A.W. Jantha" must be a pen name because this is the only thing they've ever done anywhere.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Which in and of itself is probably not a great sign, given how the selling point for modern Star Wars tie-in books is "look what famous author we got to write a Star Wars book" and not "buy this because it's Star Wars" like it was when I was 13 and reading Kevin J. Anderson books

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Anyway, I've been working my way through it despite my wife repeatedly telling me "if you don't like it, you don't have to finish it." There's enough here to interest me that I wanted to stick through to the end.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

But then I hit Chapter 10 and they tried to do a full-on choreographed music number.

In a prose novel.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Hocus Pocus, to my memory, has just the two songs. It's not a musical. Why is this book trying to make the sequel a musical?

Why would you write a musical number into a prose novel?

Why would you write a song that is *so terrible*? Who edited this?

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

"I'm always just the sister on the outside / I'm always just the sister without a ride."

What is the meter on this?

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

It rhymes "first hex" and "projects."

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Look, I have gotten a lot less prescriptive as I've grown older. I don't care so much about spelling or grammar even as I cling onto my dear Oxford Comma.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

But one thing I can't get over is lyrics or poetry that are clearly supposed to have a meter and working rhyme scheme written by someone who's bad at scansion and rhyming.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

It's especially hard because this isn't structured like a poem, it's structured like song lyrics. To a tune that doesn't exist. I mean, shit, I wrote the same kind of thing when I was 13 and had better meter than this.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Whichever author or collective put this together could have done something that worked really well. It's a *Disney project* for crying out loud. They have songwriters. It could have been a total multimedia thing.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

You're telling me Disney couldn't have assigned a songwriter to assist with this, paid Kathy Najimy a bunch of money to record a single, and released it to promote the book? Witch, please.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Immediately after we follow up with Sarah's song from the original movie, because it's more singing and everyone reading this knows what that sounds like, and it's written in a style that feels era-appropriate for 17th century witches.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

As opposed to the preceding song which doesn't work on paper at all, probably wouldn't work set to a tune, and is written in a style that feels like an off-broadway first draft.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

I'm going to finish off this chapter, at least. But I feel like this book is being written specifically to put me off of reading it, which makes me wonder what kind of secrets it's hiding at the end.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

This book is more effective at dissuading me from reading it than Ultra Comics.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019

Anyway, don't read the Hocus Pocus sequel. It's bad. I hope the Disney+ version keeps the diverse cast and queer relationship and jettisons literally everything else.

— not all mendalorian (@Doubting_Tom) November 25, 2019