Hi Everybody,

How’s it going? Good I hope!

My week started on a stressful note, and to make matters worse I woke up late today. Urgh! But I’m determined to stay positive, and I hope you find that resiliency too if you’re having a tough go so far.

Today I’m sharing my opinion of the new release A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens.

I didn’t know much about this book and learned about it when a fellow blogger posted a bunch of new releases for the summer.

When I saw my library had this, I just had to jump on it!

Blurb:

Dan and Liss are witches. The Black Book granted them that power. Harnessing that power feels good, especially when everything in their lives makes them feel powerless.

During a spell gone wrong, Liss’s boyfriend is snatched away by an evil entity and presumed dead. Dan and Liss’s friendship dies that night, too. How can they practice magic after the darkness that they conjured?

Months later, Liss discovers that her boyfriend is alive, trapped underground in the grips of an ancient force. She must save him, and she needs Dan and the power of The Black Book to do so. Dan is quickly sucked back into Liss’s orbit and pushes away her best friend, Alexa. But Alexa has some big secrets she’s hiding and her own unique magical disaster to deal with.

When another teenager disappears, the girls know it’s no coincidence. What greedy magic have they awakened? And what does it want with these teens it has stolen?

Set in the atmospheric wilds of California’s northern coast, Sasha Laurens’s thrilling debut novel is about the complications of friendship, how to take back power, and how to embrace the darkness that lives within us all. 

GoodReads

The Review:

DNF at 10%

I did not finish this book, and it didn’t take me long to drop it. For that reason, I’m not giving it a rating but am expressing my opinion.

This novel is about two girls who turns themselves into witches when they find this old book in a Free Box nearby. One of the girl’s boyfriend disappears, and they drift apart over time. But when one of the girls says she has found a way to communicate with him, the hunt is back on.

I had a severe disconnect with this book from the beginning.

Based on the blurb describing this book as Sabrina meets the Craft, I expected this novel to center more strongly on the witchcraft aspect and magic. While I can’t completely verify that it’s not about that, I wasn’t very impressed with what I did read.

The beginning scene was good, probably the strongest passage I read, but that was where the fun ended for me.

Each chapter potentially jumps around in time, which gets extremely confusing and annoying at the same time. Why put the reader through that? I guess some people like that, but it makes it extremely difficult to follow along with what’s going on, and I would’ve rather read everything in a linear fashion. After the first passage, why not just focus on them beginning to learn the craft and enjoy it in all its glory, leading up to the incident with the boyfriend? That would’ve been more fun to read about.

Instead, after the first passage we skip around in time where things are very different. The girls aren’t really friends anymore and they don’t really use magic anymore. Okay, so you promise magic in the first passage just to veer away from it in the next chapter? Not cool.

What’s worse is that there is a lot of teen drama that takes precedence over the magic aspect. Great, just what we need. Not! I got very tired of the bickering back and forth and decided not to continue on.

Friends practicing magic together can get very dramatic I’m sure, but the disjointed flow of the story and lack of magic just killed it for me.

This may be the book for you, but if you don’t like it, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

That’s a Wrap!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Have you read this book before? What did you think? Do you have a book recommendation similar to this one? Feel free to share in the comments!

If you’d like to see other reviews of mine, feel free to check out the book review section of my blog or my GoodReads. You can also follow my GoodReads reviews here. There are some great binge-worthy books on there!

Have a great day!

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