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A review by ellisaspen
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
4.0
Ivy Gamble is a private investigator who tells herself she's content with not having magic, until she is asked to take on a murder case at Osthorne, a school for mages—and the school where her estranged, magic sister also teaches. As Ivy navigates the case and learns more about magic, she wonders what life could have been if she had the kind of power her sister has. And she wonders if she can solve the case without losing her wits—or her liver.
The first, and admittedly best, thing I can say about Magic for Liars is: what a magic system! The explanations of how magic works are intriguing, as is the world at Osthorne. For example, the magical elements are interwoven with science, so students have to learn about molecules and light waves before they can perform certain spells. This isn’t just “it’s magic because it's magic," but a more developed, grounded, and nuanced view of what magic could be in a world like ours. Not to mention Ivy’s unique perspective as an outsider who only learns about the magic she needs to understand in order to solve the case. Other issues—such as the Chosen One—don’t concern her, and it was refreshing to have a peek at magic without completely diving in. Additionally, the students are realistic high schoolers whose magic doesn’t make them more mature than other students.
As a character, though, Ivy was a bit annoying at times. She tends to wallow in self-pity—a lot. She can also be biting in her judgments of others, or maybe it’s just a bluntness in her perceptions? Whatever the case, I understand the need to make her realistic and gritty, but at times this went a bit overboard.
But the two biggest issues I had with this book came at the beginning: the mugging in chapter one and the lonely bar scene sometime after that (since I listened to the audiobook, I don't know when exactly the second scene happened). Although the prologue makes a kind of third issue.
As is the case with most prologues, it introduces characters we aren’t destined to actually meet until a decent way through the book. It did what it was meant to and caught my attention, though. Dead bodies in a library of whispering books? Sounds pretty cool to me.
And then the slog of chapter one, and two, and however many until Ivy actually arrives at Osthorne, the school of magic. For awhile, the thought of that prologue and all the questions it raised was the only thing that kept me going.
First was the mugging, when Ivy’s shoulder is stabbed by some rando we never see again. I think she even kept his knife. As a PI, I expected she’d have figured out who did it. That, or I expected it to be related to the case. Neither option, however, is correct. This distracting instance would perhaps have been better handled if it instead was caused by was Glen, an angry client who kept phoning Ivy in the beginning of the novel. Just make the mugging an act of rage by an upset client, and bingo: you have a reason for her shoulder to be wounded without throwing around irrelevant plot points.
And then came the Bar Scene, when Ivy goes to a bar alone, gets drunk (which happens a lot in this book), and decides to spill her guts to the bartender. All the information (backstory) she tells the bartender ends up being discussed/revealed more naturally later in the book. Most of this has to do with her mother’s cancer and the frigid relationship she has with her twin sister. We get plenty of this at Osthorne, and it’s revealed more organically, too. Keep up some suspense by not dumping Ivy’s entire history on us in one of the first chapters. Plus, she’s someone who lies, avoids, and hides; she wouldn’t have told her life’s woes, she would have sat there wishing she could talk and instead drinking more to keep the secrets down.
So . . . After considering all this, I think a more proper rating would be a 3.5, not a 4. But I’m rounding up because, as I mentioned, I was captivated by the magic and world-building. Do I recommend it? That’s a trickier question. Magic for Liars is kind of like Sharp Objects mixed with your favorite CW supernatural teen soap opera, with a dash of Harry Potter tossed in.
The first, and admittedly best, thing I can say about Magic for Liars is: what a magic system! The explanations of how magic works are intriguing, as is the world at Osthorne. For example, the magical elements are interwoven with science, so students have to learn about molecules and light waves before they can perform certain spells. This isn’t just “it’s magic because it's magic," but a more developed, grounded, and nuanced view of what magic could be in a world like ours. Not to mention Ivy’s unique perspective as an outsider who only learns about the magic she needs to understand in order to solve the case. Other issues—such as the Chosen One—don’t concern her, and it was refreshing to have a peek at magic without completely diving in. Additionally, the students are realistic high schoolers whose magic doesn’t make them more mature than other students.
As a character, though, Ivy was a bit annoying at times. She tends to wallow in self-pity—a lot. She can also be biting in her judgments of others, or maybe it’s just a bluntness in her perceptions? Whatever the case, I understand the need to make her realistic and gritty, but at times this went a bit overboard.
But the two biggest issues I had with this book came at the beginning: the mugging in chapter one and the lonely bar scene sometime after that (since I listened to the audiobook, I don't know when exactly the second scene happened). Although the prologue makes a kind of third issue.
As is the case with most prologues, it introduces characters we aren’t destined to actually meet until a decent way through the book. It did what it was meant to and caught my attention, though. Dead bodies in a library of whispering books? Sounds pretty cool to me.
And then the slog of chapter one, and two, and however many until Ivy actually arrives at Osthorne, the school of magic. For awhile, the thought of that prologue and all the questions it raised was the only thing that kept me going.
First was the mugging, when Ivy’s shoulder is stabbed by some rando we never see again. I think she even kept his knife. As a PI, I expected she’d have figured out who did it. That, or I expected it to be related to the case. Neither option, however, is correct. This distracting instance would perhaps have been better handled if it instead was caused by was Glen, an angry client who kept phoning Ivy in the beginning of the novel. Just make the mugging an act of rage by an upset client, and bingo: you have a reason for her shoulder to be wounded without throwing around irrelevant plot points.
And then came the Bar Scene, when Ivy goes to a bar alone, gets drunk (which happens a lot in this book), and decides to spill her guts to the bartender. All the information (backstory) she tells the bartender ends up being discussed/revealed more naturally later in the book. Most of this has to do with her mother’s cancer and the frigid relationship she has with her twin sister. We get plenty of this at Osthorne, and it’s revealed more organically, too. Keep up some suspense by not dumping Ivy’s entire history on us in one of the first chapters. Plus, she’s someone who lies, avoids, and hides; she wouldn’t have told her life’s woes, she would have sat there wishing she could talk and instead drinking more to keep the secrets down.
So . . . After considering all this, I think a more proper rating would be a 3.5, not a 4. But I’m rounding up because, as I mentioned, I was captivated by the magic and world-building. Do I recommend it? That’s a trickier question. Magic for Liars is kind of like Sharp Objects mixed with your favorite CW supernatural teen soap opera, with a dash of Harry Potter tossed in.