Lessons in Magic and Disaster
About the book
Author: Charlie Jane Anders
Publisher: Tor books
More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.
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My review
I’m a big fan of Charlie Jane Anders and have read a lot of her books. This one — pitched with the premise of a woman reconnecting with her mother as she teaches her magic — caught my eye before publication and I made it a point to read it before the end of the year.
Ultimately, I liked this book but did not love it. The pacing just didn’t really do it for me; I often felt indifferent about putting it down and indifferent about picking it back up. And it felt a lot less like fantasy than I was expecting; the “magic” is wiggly and undefinable (the main character doesn’t even understand it) and often only a background detail to what the book is ultimately trying to do. But that brings me to what the book IS trying to do, because I definitely think it succeeds.
This is a story about messy relationships, both romantic and parent/child. The cast is almost entirely queer (as is true with most of CJA’s books), but it’s not about the queerness; it’s about the work it takes to know yourself well enough to be in a relationship with another person. And in fact, the book’s magic hinges on that, too. It’s also about grief — the ending made me cry, and I hadn’t even realized how invested I was in these characters.
Ultimately this is a book I’m glad to have read, and I look forward to what CJA does next. If you like character-driven books about relationships that also includes a touch of the speculative, give this one a shot.
Content and trigger warnings
Death of a parent / cancer
Grief
Transphobia / homophobia
Sexual content (minor)
Suicide attempt (sacrifice to save another)
