When We Were Magic

De: Sarah Gailey

Narrado por: Amanda Dolan

A moving, darkly funny novel about six teens whose magic goes wildly awry from Magic for Liars author Sarah Gailey, who Chuck Wendig calls an "author to watch".

Keeping your magic a secret is hard. Being in love with your best friend is harder.

Alexis has always been able to rely on two things: her best friends, and the magic powers they all share. Their secret is what brought them together, and their love for each other is unshakeable - even when that love is complicated. Complicated by problems like jealousy, or insecurity, or lust. Or love.

That unshakeable, complicated love is one of the only things that doesn't change on prom night.

When accidental magic goes sideways and a boy winds up dead, Alexis and her friends come together to try to right a terrible wrong. Their first attempt fails - and their second attempt fails even harder. Left with the remains of their failed spells and more consequences than anyone could have predicted, each of them must find a way to live with their part of the story.

©2020 Sarah Gailey (P)2021 Tantor

Teenage navel gazing... with magic

The story kicks off with a bang then proceeds to go nowhere. The most frustrating part is that there is no explanation for anything. Why do all these teenage girls have magic? Where did it come from? Why does no one know about it if seemingly everyone has magic? Why did they think their plan to solve the core problem would work? How does any of this work? All of these questions were apparently way less interesting than "does she like me?" which is where most of the book focus goes. It was all just too much teen girl angst and overthinking. Overall I thought the book would be better, but this one didn't hit the mark.

Characters were great, everything else lacked

This book was good but not as stellar as some of Gailey's other works. The characters were all incredibly well defined, and I loved their very real interactions with each other. A great display of high school friendships and love.

The ending fell a little flat, but the story was overall engrossing to listen to. There never seemed to be as many stakes as the description would have you believe, or as much guilt as I would have assumed. The book was far more interested in showing the relationships between the main cast, which is where this book shines.

Overall, I felt the resolution wasn't as poignant as I was expecting, but if you want a well paced book about girls and their love for each other, in many shapes and forms, I'd recommend this book.

hooked

was hooked by the first paragraph and kept me intrigued the whole way through

Unexpected magic

I liked the book. It was one of those books to read when you want to read something that isn't too serious or with too much world building. You get thrown into the story right away and get to know the characters along the way. Which is a different approach from most books I've read recently. Overall I liked it, but not to that extent that I want to read it again or can't stop talking about it.