One of the things I find so fascinating is the things for which I will suspend my disbelief.
Magick potions? Fine.

A student ten years out of undergrad getting into a prestigious master's program after having spend two days on her application

? In this economy?

There's a certain amount of "debut novel shakiness" here as the author finds her voice and the story figures out where it's going and what it's trying to say. And I'm not entirely sure that it itself knows, beyond having made some choice I would categorize as somewhere between interesting and questionable in doing so. One that REALLY annoyed me and was just gilding the lily of making an unlikeable character into a waste of space that felt irritatingly overblown.

Just let women leave mediocre men, don't make them evil.

Another book that was fun and fine, but not a story that delighted.

Having said that, the idea that ordinary women deserve to be recorded was by far the best thing the book did.