Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young was one of my Book of the Month choices earlier in the year and I have put off blogging about it for a while because I wasn’t certain what to say about it.
I had really been looking forward to Spells for Forgetting, the description reeled me in with the story of a murder mystery combined with some magical realism, but in reality it turned out to be about an island community that seemed steeped in superstition, corruption, and secrecy. There was very little magic mentioned and the story was much darker than I expected, even for a murder mystery.
In addition to my disappointment in the story itself I had a few other issues with it.
Written from multiple points of view, I found the voices so indistinct that I often had to refer to the chapter headers to know which character’s perspective I was reading at any given time.
Most of the characters in the book were in their thirties or older, but I constantly had to remind myself of that fact, because they all seemed to have the mentality of teenagers. I have no issue reading young adult novels, but I didn’t enjoy reading about thirty somethings that acted as though they had never left high school.
All in all, I felt like this book would have read better as a mystery, with no attempt at paranormal elements. I enjoyed it enough to finish the book but I doubt I would read it again, and am unlikely to recommend it to friends.
Life, Tea, and Everything 