Thursday, July 23, 2015

2015 book 175

Maggie Lehrman's The Cost of All Things
Teenagers already do some really insane and stupid things--so imagine how much worse it would be if they had access to magic spells (that are semi-legal, at best). This book is being marketed as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets We Were Liars, and that . . . is somewhat accurate. It's narrated from the POV of four characters--Ari, who gets a spell to forget her dead boyfriend; his best friend; a friend of Ari's who has purchased a pretty intense friendship spell (interesting issues of consent here); and the actual dead boyfriend. Everyone lies and everyone's magic has side effects and interactions, and I thought this was amazingly realistic considering the premise. Teenagers gonna teenage, and these ones sure do. The end is crazy/melodramatic but this was a very fun read. B+.

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