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A review by ryanberger
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
2.0
Bleh.
The ebbs and flows of how excited I was before diving into Magic for Liars (which was pretty high! The cover is stunning, the title is evocative, the elevator pitch is captivating) to how intrigued, yet cautious I was in the books opening moments ("Why on Earth would a magic school hire a non-magical private investigator who has never solved a murder before to investigate a death? Conspiracy! I have to know!"), to then slog through quite a bit of whining (my tolerance for whiny characters is high, if I say so myself. Ivy REALLY tests the limits of what I can take seriously) and realize about 75% of the way through that it was quite unlikely that the story would ban out satisfyingly made for quite a disappointing final impression of the book that feels like it fizzles after the first two-thirds of the book.
The prose is fun and well written in the crunchy way that I like from noire. Gailey is a very descriptive writer and as someone who likes to highlight a good turn of phrase, I had a lot to be happy about.
That said, the setting feels wasted as not much is really done with it that feels interesting behind "Shithead teenagers do shithead teenager things with magic". Some of it is quite interesting, the way that different classes of students use different methods of passing notes and think they're pioneers. That's quite fun. But for all the whispering books, color distortion and catty staff, none of the interesting elements ever turn out to be plot relevant beyond the healing magic.
There are a couple of gripes I have with Ivy's logic, like how she was furious to the point of TEARS that her sister never tried to cure their mothers cancer, only for her to explain that that's quite difficult and way outside what she could reasonably perform to completely disarm Ivy in the span of two paragraphs and admit that she "hadn't considered that". I wanted to shut the book and never pick it up again. But I had to know if any of the plants I mentally highlighted would pay off, and they so rarely did.
The romantic subplot is a gauntlet, and I think Ivy suffers for it as a character. She's a loser (not to be disrespectful in the slightest, it's how she's portrayed. She's awkward by nature and socially stunted by dropping out of high school) and so she's drawn to this gooey high school romance with a faculty member that one would think would cause interesting dilemmas, but they never come. Not only that, but she's suave and has a great time, which feels like a stretch for the character we've gotten to know even if it's made very clear that she's putting on a face and is surprised by how well it fits. The prose here gets truly sickeningly sweet and it comes to a head with some of the most disappointing melodrama I can remember. I really, really wish that had played out in a dozen other ways than what we got.
I must say ending mystery novels like this is a high wire act. There's no magic bullet. For as many stories linger past the wrap-up and overstay their welcome, there are plenty that wrap up too quickly. This is firmly in the latter, where so much of the case is revealed, explained and wrapped up at a dizzying speed and barely any of it is satisfying.
I really cannot recommend this book to anybody, unfortunately. Though I insist that for all I highlighted, it's still well written, not necessarily from a plot/narrative standpoint, but prose and Ivy's character has some fun moments.
The ebbs and flows of how excited I was before diving into Magic for Liars (which was pretty high! The cover is stunning, the title is evocative, the elevator pitch is captivating) to how intrigued, yet cautious I was in the books opening moments ("Why on Earth would a magic school hire a non-magical private investigator who has never solved a murder before to investigate a death? Conspiracy! I have to know!"), to then slog through quite a bit of whining (my tolerance for whiny characters is high, if I say so myself. Ivy REALLY tests the limits of what I can take seriously) and realize about 75% of the way through that it was quite unlikely that the story would ban out satisfyingly made for quite a disappointing final impression of the book that feels like it fizzles after the first two-thirds of the book.
The prose is fun and well written in the crunchy way that I like from noire. Gailey is a very descriptive writer and as someone who likes to highlight a good turn of phrase, I had a lot to be happy about.
That said, the setting feels wasted as not much is really done with it that feels interesting behind "Shithead teenagers do shithead teenager things with magic". Some of it is quite interesting, the way that different classes of students use different methods of passing notes and think they're pioneers. That's quite fun. But for all the whispering books, color distortion and catty staff, none of the interesting elements ever turn out to be plot relevant beyond the healing magic.
There are a couple of gripes I have with Ivy's logic, like how she was furious to the point of TEARS that her sister never tried to cure their mothers cancer, only for her to explain that that's quite difficult and way outside what she could reasonably perform to completely disarm Ivy in the span of two paragraphs and admit that she "hadn't considered that". I wanted to shut the book and never pick it up again. But I had to know if any of the plants I mentally highlighted would pay off, and they so rarely did.
The romantic subplot is a gauntlet, and I think Ivy suffers for it as a character. She's a loser (not to be disrespectful in the slightest, it's how she's portrayed. She's awkward by nature and socially stunted by dropping out of high school) and so she's drawn to this gooey high school romance with a faculty member that one would think would cause interesting dilemmas, but they never come. Not only that, but she's suave and has a great time, which feels like a stretch for the character we've gotten to know even if it's made very clear that she's putting on a face and is surprised by how well it fits. The prose here gets truly sickeningly sweet and it comes to a head with some of the most disappointing melodrama I can remember. I really, really wish that had played out in a dozen other ways than what we got.
I must say ending mystery novels like this is a high wire act. There's no magic bullet. For as many stories linger past the wrap-up and overstay their welcome, there are plenty that wrap up too quickly. This is firmly in the latter, where so much of the case is revealed, explained and wrapped up at a dizzying speed and barely any of it is satisfying.
I really cannot recommend this book to anybody, unfortunately. Though I insist that for all I highlighted, it's still well written, not necessarily from a plot/narrative standpoint, but prose and Ivy's character has some fun moments.