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popthebutterfly 's review for:

A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens
3.0

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: A Wicked Magic

Author: Sasha Laurens

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Recommended For...: fantasy, ya, magic

Publication Date: July 28, 2020

Genre: YA Fantasy

Recommended Age: 16+ (slight romance, violence, death, slight gore)

Publisher: Razorbill

Pages: 368

Synopsis: Dan and Liss are witches. The Black Book granted them that power. Harnessing that power feels good, especially when everything in their lives makes them feel powerless.

During a spell gone wrong, Liss's boyfriend is snatched away by an evil entity and presumed dead. Dan and Liss's friendship dies that night, too. How can they practice magic after the darkness that they conjured?

Months later, Liss discovers that her boyfriend is alive, trapped underground in the grips of an ancient force. She must save him, and she needs Dan and the power of The Black Book to do so. Dan is quickly sucked back into Liss's orbit and pushes away her best friend, Alexa. But Alexa has some big secrets she's hiding and her own unique magical disaster to deal with.

When another teenager disappears, the girls know it's no coincidence. What greedy magic have they awakened? And what does it want with these teens it has stolen?

Set in the atmospheric wilds of California's northern coast, Sasha Laurens's thrilling debut novel is about the complications of friendship, how to take back power, and how to embrace the darkness that lives within us all.

Review: Overall, this is a good book. The book had a lot of good character development and the world building was well done. The book was also wrote with a good atmosphere. The book had this creepy vibe throughout it and I think it fit well for the story. The book also had a decent plot.

However, I didn’t like the switching POVs and I think the book would have been better with just one. I think the ending battle was weirdly wrote and it bored me a bit. The pacing of this book is super slow. Also, I got super mad at this book because there is a character who is, in my mind, queer but the author doesn’t write them that way. The book felt weird and I didn’t connect with it at all.

Verdict: It was good, just not for me.