Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic

I struggled to get through this book a lot! I found it extremely difficult to take interest or actually care about the characters or the plot. This is because most of the events, thoughts and feelings are rather told than shown: I see no evidence for most of the claimed inner life. The plot goes all over the place, and even if the slightest hints of the main plot remain predictable throuhout the book, there seems to constantly be some random subplot event popping up. The book could have used some strong streamlining!

The one redeeming quality of this book is how it shows facing the death of a loved one and the consequent grieving; as mentioned in the acknowledgements, the author managed to write her own feelings of grief into the book in a way that the characters and the reader can also feel.

The overall vibe of this book is a confusing mix of attempted coziness (small town life, cooking, and gardening) and watered-down tenseness (bad omens, vague curses, and death threats). These two vibes clash in a way that cannot make a cohesive whole. Very vague magic system and magical rituals pulled from thin air when the plot needs a miracle don't help the immersion either: when every out-of-nowhere problem will have an out-of-nowhere magical solution, even the unpredictable becomes boringly predictable.

There is a similar confusion in the main character Sadie. She likes to think herself as having her life put together in her routines, but in reality she is very childish and stubborn to the core. She seems more like a teenager than a twenty-something adult.

It was just another dark thing she didn't want to look in the eye.

Sadie avoids everything she thinks is uncomfortable: escapes in the middle of conversations, refuses to accept facts she doesn't like, and avoids facing her own feelings. Her being as scatterbrained and stubborn as she is, results in narration that constantly grasps to insignificant reminiscing and loses the point of the current events. A considerable amount of the story feels like unnecessary and repetitive filler that aims for cosiness but lands on pure boring rambling. There were also multiple points in the narration when I was lost on what or who the part was talking about; for example a whole paragraph talking about a she that is revealed to be someone else than was mentioned in the previous paragraph, or confusing dialoque tags.

This was not a book for me, and I'm frustrated with myself that I didn't just leave it unfinished.

Content Warnings

wordwitching's review against another edition

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I had to come to read the reviews to see if anyone else feels the same as I do about this book.

While I'm relieved to see that many readers do, and I'm grateful to them for calling out the obvious and glaring misogyny, the reinforcement of traditional gender roles, the underhanded promoting of MLM essential oils, the disdain for witchcraft, the insensitive handling of serious and triggering subjects like SA, r@pe, m7rder, and suiçide, which are dropped into the plot like stink bombs only to be brushed off like they don't matter or worse: jokes.

It pains me, however, to see so many positive reviews for this book. I honestly do not understand how it became so popular or indeed how it was published in the first place.

The editing is non existent, the writing shows promise at times, but as with the subject matter, the author does not know when less is more. Instead she threw everything at it, like a cook using every single ingredient in their pantry to make a simple cake. Enough with the overcooked baking metaphors already!

The characters were either stereotypes, purely added to show diversity for diversity's sake, or shallow, childish and infuriating. I love an unlikable female character but Sadie behaves like a teenager. The author is constantly telling us how wonderful she is but everything she SHOWS about her contradicts it. She kidnaps the MMC's dog and it's played for laughs, she uses truth serums on unsuspecting victims and again, this is played off as if it's normal, acceptable behaviour. I have never wanted to shake a heroine more.

There's a completely unnecessary fake pregnancy plotline added just excuse the hero and to demonise another woman. And don't even get me started on everything else the male characters do and say. They are the WORST but everything they do is either excused by other characters or the plot. The internalised misogyny is very loud.

I gather from reading other reviews that

the FMC ends up losing her magic for one of them, which is just all sorts of NOPE.

How are we still publishing books with this tired and sexist narrative in 2023? Head of Zeus, I'm disappointed in you.

It feels like the author took a bunch of toxic positivity quotes and platitudes from social media influencer accounts and just strung them together like flimsy paper doily garlands in a Instagram reel. Pretty to look at but ultimately weightlessly fragile and tissue thin.

Hashtag "Witches Of Instagram"; Hashtag "Trad Wife"; Hashtag "So Blessed".

I'm sorry I cannot find anything positive to say about this book. The recipes might be good, but I cannot bring myself to try them.

I've included cultural appropriation in my content warnings because I truly believe this author is appropriating witchcraft due to her religious beliefs. It is a travesty for this book to be positively compared with Practical Magic.

And on that note, I'll leave this review with a final word from Aunt Jet Owens:

“And this is what comes from dabbling; I mean you can't practice witchcraft while you look down your nose at it.”

Content Warnings

thebranchlibrary_'s review

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

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gpfot's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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ahopper7's review

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book was marketed incorrectly. It’s not a cozy witchy small town romance. There was so much potential in the premise but it desperately needed more editing to hone in on a real plot and handle its topics in a thoughtful way.

Pros (kind of):
- It definitely has some cozy elements especially in the first quarter of the book
- I loved the family element it was *trying* to incorporate
- The recipes at the end of each chapter added nicely to the story, not enough to redeem but still cute
- The magic was soo close to being a mix of Practical Magic and Mayfair Witches (depending on character) but it wasn’t executed well

Cons:
- The romance subplot is not done well and the characters or their romance are not developed
- The book very carelessly handled serious topics like rape, murder and attempted suicide which didn’t sit well with me and is the main reason behind my rating
- Overall, the story or the characters were just not developed. The team around this book really should have spent more time fleshing out one or two of the plot points instead of throwing in several different story lines and not executing any of them well.

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meggy1967's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

I did enjoy the book but I felt the dialogue was rather stilted. The main character was likeable as were the majority of the side characters. The ending felt incredibly rushed given the amount of build up given throughout the entire book. There was a LOT of mentions of religion and God, so if you’re uncomfortable with that I’d be aware.

Content Warnings

hlbennett's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This read was what, as a Millennial, I imagine mid is. So much attention seems to be paid to parts that don't matter while not enough attention is paid to things that really would. Parts that are uninteresting drag on while parts that are interesting are sped up, like the rushed ending. The things you want explained aren't going to be explained well enough but you're going to get so much detail when Sadie is cooking. The most interesting part of the book is the concept of the magic, the family curses, the origin, who has what magic and what are their curses, but most of those explanations aren't there or aren't explained enough. And not in an artistic, "What did Billie Joe MacAllister throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge?" kind of way.

I'm left with so many questions and I reread these passages several times to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. I thought surely, the explanation is there, I'm just missing it.

Like:
- What's up with the voice at Old Ballier [sp]?
- Why did Jake leave in the first place?
- Is Florence the conduit/amplifier or is Seth?
- And if not Florence, why wasn't she supposed to have children?
- Why was there a death owed for the lives of the twins and then Florence couldn't see them, but she's had Sage without mention of murder and shows up with her in tow?
- What are Florence's powers?
- If it's a life for a life, how on earth did Gigi get out of paying the blood debt without a second murder? And why didn't they just do that again? Or better yet, if sacrificing your magic paid the debt, why didn't Gigi or Florence do that decades ago so that this poor kid didn't grow up going through what he says he went through?

Moving on from poor explanations, there are a number of parts that are supposed to be "twists" that are as straight as a board.
- The ghost in the back yard? Gigi gives some ominous direction to protect the house and we're led to believe it's for this spirit, but really I guess it was for nothing because turns out it was just papaw. The reader learns this in a 5 second conversation Sadie has with her mother.
- The damage to the garden? Turns out it's tied to Sadie's emotions but doesn't manifest during her first or second heartbreaks; no, it waits until she's 28 and feeling sad. Also, it seems a bit late in the year for regrowing entire gardens. Even with the magic of it all, why would Jake, who hadn't had confirmation of Sadie's magic, replant a garden in what, September?
- Sadie's sacrifice? First, Gigi knew of a solution and instead of having a conversation with Sadie about it, she chose to leave it in a letter. Yes, because that's what any responsible parent would do when the life of their child hung in the balance and they had literal months to have these kinds of conversations. Second, we're supposed to believe that everyone who'd read that letter didn't understand it meant Sadie giving up her magic? Come on. Third, Sadie just decides to unalive herself with, I can't remember how much time, until the full moon? Like she's not going to wait until they're sure they've tried everything else?
- I almost forgot it, but THE FAKE PREGNANCY? Are you kidding.

It's just not a well built story. I'm not one of those people who can't suspend a measure of logic to enjoy a story and even so, this has too many loose ends to be worth the read.

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