Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - The Magpie Society: Two for Joy

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

The Magpie Society: Two for Joy by Amy McCulloch, Zoe Sugg

1 review

rinku's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Two for Joy is the second book in the The Magpie Society series and sadly couldn’t catch me at all. The main reason for this is that everything about this book just felt a bit flat and that the ending was so rushed and far-fetched.

After the events of the first book, Clover disappeared, and Ivy and Audrey get invitations from the mysterious Magpie Society. Besides being occupied with those two conflicts, they still have to find out who killed Lola and find the murderer before they can kill other people. I had the hope that the story could get more interesting with a new focus on the society. Sadly, this wasn’t the case since

it doesn’t exist since anymore

. To be honest, the introduction of the society had no impact on the story whatsoever and its existence didn’t make sense in the first place which was just wasted potential.

I can’t even say why, but I furthermore didn’t like the mystery elements as much in this book. Some things were a bit cliché and others didn’t make too much sense for me, like

why the girls never told anyone about the relationship between Mr Willis and Lola. So many conflicts could’ve been resolved if they just told anyone. It also sends a bit of a weird signal for younger audiences, to be honest

. After a third, we learn the big conflict of this novel, namely that

the school should be sold, and that Audrey’s dad is part of the deal

. She didn’t know about this before but because of miscommunication, we get some silly conflicts that could’ve been resolved so easily. Many other dramatic things happen, like

Patrick’s flat burning down together with Clover

but they barely had any impact on me since they were described so unemotionally.

But like I’ve said above, what I liked the least about Two for Joy was the kinda rushed and far-fetched ending:

Mr Willis kidnaps Audrey by accident and then decides that he wants to kill her – I think? – but Ivy comes for her rescue. It honestly made no sense that Ivy could run as fast as the car Mr Willis was using. Also, I found him being the perpetrator just a bit unsatisfying, same goes for the solution for the selling of the school which was explained in like two sentences. The ending became more absurd though when it’s revealed that it was Ivy in reality that killed Lola. It’s only told to us that she already knew about the plans about the selling of the school, and it’s implied that she kills Audrey in the end. I hate endings like these since they make the whole story happening before kinda obsolete

. In my opinion, this twist didn’t make any sense at all and made me lower my rating from three to two stars. Additionally, all of this was simply told which made it feel even more unsatisfying.

At least we learned some more information about Ivy and Audrey, especially about their families. I still had a problem with the fact that their voices sound quite similar, leading to me checking for than once whose POV I’m reading right now. Another problem I had with the characters was the romance between Audrey and Teddy. It just felt really flat, and it is only told how it developed the way it did, not shown. In comparison, I shipped Ivy and Audrey so much and wished that they would’ve become a couple. It also annoyed me that there was more fighting between the female characters, mostly because of silly things. But oh well, this is just how teenager girls are like.

The Magpie Society as a series had so much potential but sadly, the execution was just not great. It was promised a boarding school book with a murder mystery and a secret society but all of those elements just stay flat. At least with the first book, I liked the plot around the podcast, and it was interesting what effect it had on the school life. But this plot is abandoned in the second book and is replaced by a not so interesting conflict. If I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t recommend the series. The first book was at least interesting but this one was just flat and didn’t deliver a satisfying conclusion.

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