A review by whimsicallymeghan
The Forgetting Spell by Lauren Myracle

3.0

Darya’s wishing day is approaching, but she doesn’t exactly believe in all the magic as much as her family does. Looking to escape it all, instead she finds herself getting deeper and deeper into it as her long lost mother returns and things she thought she’d forgotten start to resurface. This novel was all over the place. First off, this only sort of started where we left off. Time has elapsed since the first novel and this left the reader feeling extremely confused because how that one ended, we were looking forward to how it would all play out; instead, everything the reader anticipated was skipped and left out and now we’re moving on to more from this magical family. This was also really confusing because the author kept alluding to these grander plans and plots, but then either didn’t expand on them or completely excluded them from the story and we’re left to pick up the pieces. It was fast-paced, but it was especially frustrating to read with what felt like half-baked plots. The characters didn’t help either because they didn’t really hit their stride, either. The reader thought we’d get more from already established characters, but we didn't, if anything, they became background noise and new characters were brought in but they were also only one dimensional. There are so many mysteries surrounding the people and places in this trilogy, but we’re not given enough to put together, we’re given little bits that don’t seem to be fitting together. The sisterly bond was so well set up in the first book, but this one lacked so much of that connection and instead had all the characters fighting the entire time. This one wasn’t as heavy as the first one either; the author tried to bring in mental health rep, but it wasn’t as well done, it felt more like it was slapped on. The reader enjoyed the idea of this story, but this novel felt like it lost the plot.