The Fascinators

De: Andrew Eliopulos

Narrado por: Michael Crouch

A magic-infused YA novel about friendship, first love, and feeling out of place that will bewitch fans of Rainbow Rowell and Maggie Stiefvater.

Living in a small town where magic is frowned upon, Sam needs his friends James and Delia—and their time together in their school's magic club—to see him through to graduation.

But as soon as senior year starts, little cracks in their group begin to show. Sam may or may not be in love with James. Delia is growing more frustrated with their amateur magic club. And James reveals that he got mixed up with some sketchy magickers over the summer, putting a target on all their backs.

With so many fault lines threatening to derail his hopes for the year, Sam is forced to face the fact that the very love of magic that brought his group together is now tearing them apart—and there are some problems that no amount of magic can fix.

An accessible story about love and magic!

This was such a fun listen!! The magical elements were quick and was to understand. The characters really stand out and are relatable even in their lowest moments! If you're looking for a fun quick listen this is the one!

wasted potential

the ending was just.. so anticlimactic. no satisfaction. it was hardly worth listening to at all with how little resolution it gave.

Kind of disappointing

I feel like this author wanted to relay a series of anecdotes on the experience of growing up queer and dealing with bigotry, hate, closeted guys, etc. And in that sense, they definitely succeeded, because as a queer person myself I found a lot of Sam's and Denver's little experiences to be quite relatable and well-said.

The issue is that this book is also trying to have an overarcing plot and narrative and a love story and in those senses, it really falls short. The world setting was pretty neat, but the plot is middling at best and occasionally outright boring. I don't feel like most of the characters actually had an arc or went anywhere, from a narrative standpoint, and the two that really did... well, one is our main character whose development just feels kinda flat by the end, and the other is given an extremely flimsy motivation for doing something extremely questionable and then is just kinda... left out there, with no finished plot line.

I dunno, by the end I really found myself feeling like the whole thing had been a bit of a waste of time, especially since of the two romances the book makes you wanna root for, one gets treated like an afterthought and the other goes unresolved entirely. That was a real let down.

The narrator's performance was... middling. I can tell he's actually VERY good, but in his effort to try and give every character a distinct voice, his delivery of Sam's lines just winds up being flat and vaguely depressing pretty much all the way through, like he's perpetually sad, and I didn't feel like that really fit the tone of most of Sam's lines. An unfortunate choice, I think.

Anyway, all of it was, overall, passable and at least something to listen to on a drive or something. But I just found myself really disappointed by it.

Left me wanting more

Great narration by Michael Crouch for such build up to little action where so much is left hanging. Maybe a sequel will help fill this out a little better?

A lovely ride

I really appreciate this book. I really do. The characters were so relatable it was infuriating at times, but that's what how we are isn't it? I love how even though this book has so many fantasy elements it never seemed plot driven. It was completely character driven. 10/10 I would highly recommend this story.