Lessons in Magic and Disaster

by Charlie Jane Anders

In the vein of Alice Hoffman and Charlie Jane Anders's own All the Birds in the Sky comes a novel full of love, disaster, and magic.

A young witch teaches her mother how to do magic--with very unexpected results--in this relatable, resonant novel about family, identity, and the power of love.

Jamie is basically your average New England academic in-training--she has a strong queer relationship, an esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one extraordinary secret: she's also a powerful witch.

Serena, Jamie's mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has left are memories.

Jamie’s busy digging into a three-hundred-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn't know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those secrets are leading Serena down a destructive path.

Now it's up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic, before her mother ruins both of their lives.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Adult, Queer, LGBT, Witches, Dark Academia

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 19, 2025

About the author

My latest book is Victories Greater Than Death. Coming in August: Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories.

Previously: All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, and a short story collection, Six Months, Three Days, Five Others.

Coming soon: An adult novel, and a short story collection called Even Greater Mistakes.

I used to write for a site called io9.com, and now I write for various places here and there.

I won the Emperor Norton Award, for “extraordinary invention and creativity unhindered by the constraints of paltry reason.” I've also won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, a William H. Crawford Award, a Theodore Sturgeon Award, a Locus Award and a Lambda Literary Award.

My stories, essays and journalism have appeared in Wired Magazine, the Boston Review, Conjunctions, Tin House, Slate, MIT Technology Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Tor.com, Lightspeed Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, ZYZZYVA, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, 3 AM Magazine, Flurb.net, Monkey Bicycle, Pindeldyboz, Instant City, Broken Pencil, and in tons and tons of anthologies.

I organize Writers With Drinks, which is a monthly reading series here in San Francisco that mashes up a ton of different genres. I co-host a Hugo Award-winning podcast, Our Opinions Are Correct, with Annalee Newitz.

Back in 2007, Annalee and I put out a book of first-person stories by female geeks called She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology and Other Nerdy Stuff. There was a lot of resistance to doing this book, because nobody believed there was a market for writing about female geeks. Also, Annalee and I put out a print magazine called other, which was about pop culture, politics and general weirdness, aimed at people who don’t fit into other categories. To raise money for other magazine, we put on events like a Ballerina Pie Fight – which is just what it sounds like – and a sexy show in a hair salon where people took off their clothes while getting their hair cut.

I used to live in a Buddhist nunnery, when I was a teenager. I love to do karaoke. I eat way too much spicy food. I hug trees and pat stone lions for luck. I talk to myself way too much when I’m working on a story.

Reviews

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a lovely novel, a real genre-buster that brings in so many elements to form a patchwork that is somehow challenging and cozy.

So much to sink your teeth into. So much I enjoyed. I loved the almost anti-worldbuilding approach Anders takes here, where the magic is intuitive, unexplained, more about feelings and instincts than anything else. It feels a lot like, well, just being a person. Trying to figure out who you are and what you want just as much as it is trying to do a spell. Magic is often a metaphor, but it's not always such a mess and I loved it.

There is also the 18th century literature of it all. I purposely did not look up all the books Anders referenced because I wanted to act as if they were all absolutely real. So imagine my surprise when nearly all of them actually are. (There is one, central novel that Anders invents.) She's done such an impressive job of creating this novel, of tying it back to many other works and events with real people, that it all feels so deep and tangible and full of research you can get lost in along with Jamie.

But what Anders does best here is dive all the way into the messy relationships at the core of the novel. Between Jamie and her mother Serena. Between Jamie and her partner Ro. Between Serena and her wife Mae. None of these relationships are simple. They involve conflicts and secrets and struggle. They are also fun and sexy and comforting. Love stories are all well and good, but I am a sucker for a story about people who don't know if they are falling out of love, who are struggling to figure out if love is worth saving. These are not questions with easy answers. And these are not characters facing straightforward decisions. Jamie is pulled between Serena and Ro, a mother she feels obligated to care for and a partner who is a safe and reliable refuge. Why would Jamie jeopardize her incredibly wholesome relationship to help a mother who may not deserve her help? Why can't she stop herself? And does that mean that her relationship isn't as healthy as it seems? The flashbacks to Serena and Mae, Jamie's parents, help us see how Serena got to be who she is and explain more about who Jamie is, too. Ultimately this is actually, despite all the other genres involved, a coming of age novel.

A heavily queer cast (maybe a straight character popped up here and there? who's to say), this book felt really rooted in reality for being a fantasy novel. I felt like these were people I knew, people I see in real life.

I'm not much of a Fantasy reader, but I think this is a book that could work for readers of many different genres. Hand it to any queer nerd, and you'll have a happy reader.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

eARC

I have so many thoughts about this book, I don't know where to begin.

The main character of Jamie is so vibrant and human, silly and warm, anxious and relatable. It's hard to separate her from the author, or her smart, insightful non-binary partner Ro from the author's smart, insightful non-binary partner. Because of this, the book feels like Charlie Jane Anders's most personal work.

It's easy to fall into the trap that this is a simple book, but it isn't. The author deftly balances two POVs, actual historical works, and fictional historical works, along with a magic system that truly feels real. And then there's the sense that every character has facets and layers that make them ultimately unknowable, which is...what actual people are: complex and unpredictable.

I haven't even touched on the grief, tension, and real-life horror that the book is saturated in. (Gavin can go jump off of a cliff.) There was a part where I felt sick with a combination of anxiety and anger for these characters.

Anders does a great job balancing so much here while creating a readable book that feels as magical as it does real.

[WBTM BOOKSHELF]

Charlie Jane Anders on the book...

"Also, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is the gayest thing I’ve ever written. Pretty much all of the characters are queer, and it traces the fight for LGBTQIA+ liberation from the 1730s to the 1990s to the present. There are protests against gay-bashing and transphobia. We see the trans and queer community coming together to shelter and uplift vulnerable people. It’s joyously, defiantly queer in a way that feels like a bigger deal now than when I wrote it.

At the same time, I’ve had a lot of conversations about how this really feels like the kind of gentle, friendly book that your mom’s book club could absolutely enjoy"

https://buttondown.com/charliejane/ar...

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unexpectedly healing and wholesome, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is queer, witchy, and compassionate in just the right amounts. Anders manages to acknowledge the effects of intergenerational trauma while at the same time holding characters to account for their individual bullshit. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Tor in exchange for a review.

Jamie is a graduate student writing her thesis on a fictional novel (Emily) by a real eighteenth-century novelist (Sarah Fielding). She’s also trans and, technically, a witch—though that last label becoming more identity than hobby is a concern of hers throughout the book. In any case, Jamie decides to teach her mother, Serena, the rudiments of magic. She hopes this can help Serena, who has been mired in grief over the death of her partner and Jamie’s other mother, Mae, for years. Jamie is successful—maybe too successful—and even as this newfound craft brings mother and daughter closer together, it starts to wreak havoc on Jamie’s own romantic life. Meanwhile, budget cuts at her college and a transphobic activist both threaten to throw her academic life into disarray. Jamie’s not having a good year … how much of it is her own doing?

I really enjoyed the pacing of this book. Anders keeps the plot moving and has enough mysteries in the air to sustain interest. Just as I’m getting bored with Jamie/Serena, there’s Jamie/Ro drama, literary sleuthing drama, or a flashback chapter to Serena/Mae/kid Jamie. (Indeed, these flashbacks are dope in their own right, and I would welcome a prequel novel or novella about Serena and Mae, kind of like Concrete Rose , should Anders ever deign to write it.) All of these subplots and relationships are important and interesting in their own right, and Anders synthesizes them into an important and interesting novel.

Jamie and Serena’s tumultuous relationship looks like it’s the backbone of the story with the way Anders introduces it right off the hop. However, I would argue that Jamie and Ro are more significant. Her mother is an important part of her life, yet her relationship with Ro is (as Jamie herself notes) a significant source of stability. When Jamie’s magic use creates problems, it upends Jamie’s entire life. I really like how Anders models an affirming, enthusiastic relationship that includes some kinky sex and then shows how even these relationships can run aground if one or both partners makes mistakes. Jamie is far from a bad person, yet Ro’s objections to her behaviour are totally valid. Watching the two of them work out these issues is painful and uncomfortable yet so necessary.

Jamie’s own mistakes, especially regarding Ro, are the heart of this book and the most important conflict—far more so than anything McAllister Bushwick can conjure up. I think it’s so interesting that Anders dangles Bushwick like a spectre of a villain yet he ultimately proves to be a kind of red herring. But I’m not surprised either. Jamie’s transness is an important and fundamental part of her character, yet it isn’t that important to the plot. Lessons in Magic and Disaster is notable in this way for featuring a trans protagonist who has happily transitioned, experiences some transphobia, yet for whom transition and being trans is not the focus of the story. Similarly, the fact that Jamie can fuck up in these little yet big (from her point of view) ways is important too; trans protagonists deserve to be just as flawed and messy as cis protagonists. Finally, I just want to note that I really love how Anders deals with talking about pretransition Jamie in the flashback chapters (by censoring Jamie’s deadname, similar to how eighteenth-century novelists would, and always using she/her pronouns retroactively). Maybe it isn’t surprising that Anders, as a trans woman, would approach this matter sensitively, yet I still want to laud it as much as I would a cis author doing so.

I also really like how Anders portrays magic in this book. Just as Jamie finds herself drawn to liminal spaces to perform spells, magic itself is a liminal creature herein. I can’t speak for readers who actually believe in or practise magic themselves, but as a naïve reader it feels like a respectful way to explore ideas around magic use without committing too hard to depicting any actual systems or rituals of magic. This freedom allows Anders instead to explore its connections to relationality overall.

The same goes for the fictional novel she has conjured up—again, I would love to read the full text of Emily if Anders ever wanted to write it! Reading about Jamie’s intense, sometimes dramatic search for information about Sarah and Jane and this novel stoked my latent love of classical English literature (though I must confess I am more of an early nineteenth-century lass myself: George Eliot foreva!). Although I never seriously entertained a career in academia, had I pursued one, perhaps I would be like Jamie in my zeal. Her obsession not just with Emily but with learning more about Sarah and Jane’s world and how women of their time experienced it is nothing short of infectious.

Above all else, though, what will stick with me from this novel is just how doggedly Anders pursues the idea of dealing with trauma. She accurately captures how trauma comes at us from various angles and sources. Some if it is passed down from parent to child, as we see through the flashbacks where Serena and Mae’s struggles imprint themselves on Jamie. Some of it comes to us from social forces, like transphobia and other oppression. Some of it comes from the consequences of our own mistakes. In this novel, Anders makes it clear that everyone should be accountable for those mistakes—Jamie in particular, but Serena also—yet, in the same vein, those mistakes do not render you unlovable, unworthy. It’s this compassion, so deeply baked into every sentence and paragraph, that makes this novel truly memorable. So many of us queer folx carry a lot of trauma, and even those of us lucky enough to escape a lot of personal traumatic experiences are part of a wider collective of trauma stretching back across decades of oppression and hatred. Anders needles around the edges of these ideas, both in the flashback chapters and in Jamie’s own encounters with transphobes and right-wing zealots (I loved and simultaneously despised the nihilistic gleefulness of Gavin … too real, Charlie Jane, too real). I didn’t expect the inclusion of these ideas to hit me as hard as it did, yet in retrospect, I am so grateful she explores them.

Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a complex and careful book full of interlocking ideas and credible characters. I’ve vacillated on whether to rate it four stars or five. Maybe I’m being too harsh by going with four stars, so I hope you don’t take that as a sign that this book is in any way wanting. If anything about its description or my review has you nodding along and interested, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.

[milliereadsalot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is one that a lot of people are going to love, it unfortunately just didn't quite work for me. This is really a book about healing, grief, trauma and compassion, and it was done very well - I just never connected with the characters, and I also struggled with the worldbuilding/magic system. i think the witchy magic felt too chaotic for the depths of this story, and it ended up overshadowing the message for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!

[Carla Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. From the description I thought it was going to be an exciting book to read. It was not!!!! I understand what the author was trying to do. It's a good concept for a plot. However the extra extra amounts of filler in the book takes away from the plot entirely. The execution of the writing was all wrong, left a complete desire for more. There seems to be more filler than actual story which bored me to death. The writing did not capture, did not keep you there, and a desire to just be done with it. Good attempt it needs honed a lot more. The main character Jamie is worried about her mother Serena. After Serena loses her life partner to death, she becomes a complete shut-in and gives up on the world to complete depression. Jamie as a last resort tries to show her the little bit of magic she has and tries to show her mom how to do it. Jamie only actually knows how to do one thing magical. Nothing else. Serena tries to do the magic alone and causes complete chaos in her life. You may have a different opinion than mine. Give it a try and see what you think.

[Denise Ruttan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Lessons in Magic and Disaster" is a book that is practically tailor-made for my reading tastes; it was just about perfect in almost every way. I felt privileged to be a part of the ARC team for this beautiful, thoughtful book.

Jamie is a grad student working on her dissertation about 18th-century literature, with a focus on women writers of the time who may or may not have been queer. She's also helping out her mother, with whom she's had a fraught relationship. I was a little thrown at first by referencing her mother by her first name but it worked with their complicated relationship and the structure of the points of view.

Serena is unmoored from losing the love of her life, Mae, the glue that held their loving queer family together. Jamie tries to help her process her grief by teaching her magic. She's a trans witch, a powerful one at that, but she has always worked in secret, finding places in the wilderness between the modern and the primeval to do her workings. But her mother, filled with rage and a need for revenge, soon taps into a malevolent source as Jamie faces a targeted, transphobic harassment campaign over her work as a student teacher.

Along the way Jamie's relationship with her nonbinary partner Ro (named after Ro Laren! squee!) takes a hit as the secrets she's kept from everyone she loves come to roost.

The story is told from Jamie's point of view, then back story from Serena's point of view as she reminisces about the love story between her and Mae, then bounces into nerdy tangents from the POVs of the 18th century women writers. I liked this structure although sometimes Serena/Mae and Jamie/Ro sounded similar and the 18th century lit excerpts could be clunky to read.

This felt like a very personal book for the author and I appreciated that she really put her heart and soul into these characters. If you can only read trans characters in queernormative worlds where the stakes are low for them, this isn't the book for you. There was plenty of discrimination and misgendering, and I liked how it showed both queer folks and witches finding solidarity, community and accountability against the hate. A very relevant and essential book.

I also loved how the characters were complex people, sometimes very unlikable, but I always understood their motivations. This was an incredibly queer book but I loved how it showed queer love and queer family dynamics without being a romance. This is life after the HEA when things get messy.

This book really spoke to me personally and I saw myself in these characters. It will stay with me for a very long time and was a meaningful, impactful read for me. Reading this was therapeutic in a way, and I laughed, cried and felt touched by the nerdiness and depth of each character.

Heartfelt thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Ally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got an arc from work

So I’ve only read one book by CJA that wasn’t for me in a way that was entirely not the book’s fault. This one sounded interesting though so when an arc came in I picked it up, and while it does deal with some stuff that gives me the heebie jeebies (I don’t do well with Cancer storylines but this was only detailed in one chapter) I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed this!
It’s clear there’s a reason Anders sweeps at award shows, she has a great narrative voice that makes you feel like you’re listening to a fairy tale and also catching up with an old friend over coffee and I love that! This one is funny and bittersweet and so delightfully queer and I’m really glad that I gave it a chance.
It’s also very much a love letter to books and storytelling. I took a class on 18th century British novels in college and while I still maintain that Moll Flanders gave me adhd, this book made me feel so smart because I’d read the books being talked about and understood the references being made in a way that really added to the story!

So yeah, I enjoyed this a lot and if you’ll excuse me I need to go call my mom

[Siobhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a novel about a trans witch who teaches her mother magic, only to find that magic might not always be the answer. Jamie is a trans woman, graduate student, and a witch, and she wants to do something to get her mother, Serena, back out into the world, as Serena's been hiding away since the death of her wife. Jamie teaches her mother the magic she's been using for years, all about exchanging something for what you most want, but Serena finds this magic a powerful force, and suddenly all elements of Jamie's life are affected: her relationship with her mother, her marriage to Ro, her reputation at the college she works at.

I was drawn to this novel as I wanted to read a book by Charlie Jane Anders, and even though I'm not a huge fantasy person unless the fantasy is combined with more literary or general fiction, the selling point of the book being about a trans woman witch was enough for me to give it a go. Conveniently for me, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is not just a story about magic, and it is the kind of fantasy that is set in the real world except a few people can do magic, which is what I was hoping for.

The book is told both in the present day from Jamie's perspective, and also in the past telling the story of her mothers, Serena and Mae. The present day narrative explores the magic side, and also Jamie's research into a (fictional) eighteenth century novel and what it says about the real life historical women involved in it, whilst the story of Jamie's mothers is more around queer community, sacrifice, and what makes a relationship. Sometimes this structure, particularly the chunks from the fictional eighteenth century novel and a fairytale story within its narrative, makes the book feel a bit slow-going, as it takes a while to get to the next bit of a plotline. However, the layered approach allows there to be a lot of things in conversation with each other.

The characters are flawed and messy, though I think some of the moral dilemmas and questions could've been more deeply explored as there's some interesting stuff around trust and sacrifice and coping with things that gets reduced to characters taking in a "therapy-speak" style. There's an online abuse/cancel culture plotline that again doesn't quite get enough space to have nuance, and Jamie's academic work (both research and her teaching/position at the college) always felt a bit pushed to the side even though there were so many chunks of the fake novel. I did like a lot of the character relationships, including Jamie and Ro's marriage that hits tension when Ro finds out about the magic, and what we see of Jamie's relationship with her dead mother, Mae.

Overall, I like how ambitious this novel is in combining the magic side with a tale of eighteenth century writer women and a look at queer community, whilst at its heart, having a story about a trans women and her relationships with other people in her life. At times I found it a bit slow and frustrating, but I found the ending powerful in terms of the character relationships and I think this book will be great for fans of queer fantasy with a literary edge.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've long been a fan of Charlie Jane Anders' work, and this novel is exactly what I needed it to be.

Jamie is a literature grad student in the Boston/Cambridge area, working on the 18th century novel. Jamie and her mom, Serena, are both grieving the death of Serena's wife Mae. Serena's grief is devastating, and Jamie decides to teach Serena about doing magic as a way to try to bring Serena back to focusing on the present.

This... does not go well (hence the title).

The story bounces back and forth between the present, the 1990s when Serena and Mae were younger, and the 18th century works that Jamie is studying. Found family and the challenges of building community when things are hard are front and center, as it's a predominantly queer cast of characters.

Heartfelt and heart-wrenching in the best ways, this novel is about grief and belonging, recovery, healing, and love. Even when you aren't exactly perfect. It is full of messy but well-meaning people trying their best, screwing up, and figuring out how to do better and move forward, even when it hurts. *Especially* when it hurts. Because the space between surviving and living is huge, and the best way to fill it in is with people who love and accept you for you.

Because it turns out that there's no way to make grief *not* hurt, even with magic. The fact that it hurts is proof that the grief comes from love, and leaning into that love is the way to keep living.

Highly recommended, like the most comforting of hugs from a loved one at a difficult time.

[Tilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charlie Jane Anders has a unique talent for blending messy human relationships and wild nature-based spells, and I loved untangling the clever thoughts and big emotions of this book. While the blurb is about a young witch teaching her mother magic, the story ambles in all sorts of directions: protagonist Jamie sets out to re-connect with her mom and to finish her dissertation, but along the way she finds herself confronting deep grief, aggressive transphobia, and academic perils, culminating in the threat of losing everyone she holds dear.

Though the characters deal with some heavy content, I found the overall tone of the writing was hopeful and light; I have a fondness for nerdy lit weirdos, and Jamie’s voice was so fun and sensorily evocative, whether she was discussing mysteries from eighteenth-century novels or describing spells gone catastrophically wrong. The magic system was also fascinating to me, focusing on forgotten places and intention and reclamation, and I loved that Jamie and her mom Serena figured things out together without ever really knowing any of the rules.

Overall, this book took me on an emotional journey, and I was very moved by the bittersweetness of the central queer relationships and all the mistakes and acts of forgiveness that wove their ways through the narrative. “Lessons in Magic and Disaster” is a complex and thoughtful novel with literary and fantasy elements, and I loved spending time in its world.

4.25 stars

Thanks to Tor Books and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to be part of the ARC chain and was delighted to be able to read this absolute masterpiece early. Thanks, Charlie Jane!

Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a stunning meditation on grief, boundaries, forgiveness, and love. There were so many layers to this story that I'm looking forward to rereading it again when my preorders arrive. In the present day narrative, Jamie, a PhD student in English, navigates transphobia in academia and relationship challenges with her mother and partner as she tries to write her dissertation on an obscure 18th century novel of manners. Her mother has spent the last handful of years grief stricken after the death of her wife and the dramatic cancellation of her law career. In the past, her two mothers, Serena and Mae, meet, fall in love, and start a family together. In between chapters there are charming excerpts from the novel Jamie is researching for her dissertation.

I've loved every bit of fiction written by this author, but this book in particular was so dear to my heart. As a fellow member of the tgnc and queer community I felt such appreciation for the raw vulnerability in the depictions of queer love and relationship struggles as well as transphobia and gender dysphoria. Despite some of the heart wrenching plot developments, the narrative retains an optimism that keeps the overall tone from descending into fetishising trauma. The magic system felt so familiar to me as a former weird lonely kid who spent a lot of time in my tweens hanging out in the wild wooded edges of surburbia. I absolutely adored the excerpts from the 18th century novel.

What a beautiful and timely story filled with defiance and courage! Thank you, Charlie Jane Anders!

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for early copy for review*

Really enjoyed the character work and reading a literary fantasy centering queer women doing magic. The added bonus of an academic writing a dissertation examing the queerness of 18th century literature was also a delight.

I have not had the chance to read anything else by this author, but plan to check out their backlog of works.

[Elodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5

Lessons in Magic and Disaster follows Jamie as she sets about teaching magic to her mother, Serena. Through this process, she ends up learning a lot more about the rules and the power of their magic. It also follows Jamie’s academic and married life.

Jamie and Serena are complex and compelling characters, they feel fleshed out. The flashbacks to Serena and Mae added a lot to the story; we get to know both her and her wife, Mae, along with a young Jamie and see her grow into who she is present day.

There is very little magic throughout the book, even though it is the thing that sets up most of the conflicts. We do see the use magic and learn about it along with the characters, especially at the end; but magic is used as a device for Jamie and Serena to process their grief over losing Mae, Serena’s wife and Jamie’s mom, and to reconnect with each other.

The writing is atmospheric and richly descriptive, but it felt contrived at times with some of the lingo the author uses (e.g. the frequent use of "trolling"). The constant, and frequently long, tangents into Jamie’s dissertation felt unnecessary and could have been cut short. While interesting, they took me out of the story, and there was already a lot going on.

[Jay Steinbrecher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me begin by saying that I love Charlie Jane Anders. I think that she is one of the greatest genre writers working today; her Unstoppable Trilogy was impossible to put down, and All the Birds in the Sky is on my shortlist of books to recommend to anyone who asks. As a writer, I often refer to her essays in Never Say You Can’t Survive. My daughter’s name was inspired by her.

Full disclosure: I received a digital Advanced Readers Copy, but I have also preordered the novel, which releases August 19th, 2025.



Anders' latest novel, Lessons in Magic and Disaster, reads like a very personal story. As a fan, I subscribe to her newsletter, have had the pleasure of corresponding with her, and am aware of her journey as a professional, as a trans person, and as a writer. This novel reads raw and autobiographical. As I was reading this ARC, there are jarring moments of language which feel out of place, like using “glorp” as an adverb, or GenX characters using GenZ idioms. I’m not sure if there’s another pass coming from the editor or if it is a stylistic choice, but the inconsistency in slang and idioms tells me that this POURED out of Charlie Jane.

Charlie Jane Anders

And it very much feels that way. Our protagonist, Jamie, is a trans woman whose narrative chapters often feel like a mashup of Bret Easton Ellis’ penchant for detail and a panic attack. Avoiding spoilers, Jamie is a person who is very introverted, very stressed about keeping her different relationships together, but also has clearly not grown up, even if she’s been forced to in more ways than one. And she can do magic.

Likewise, Serena, who is a foil to Jaime but also a key part of the narrative, has her own interspersed chapters which add a lot of depth to her past, fleshing out the person she was and juxtaposing it against the person we meet during Jamie’s narrative. The Serena chapters are a narrative breath of fresh air. Jamie’s chapters are dense, filled with a lot of inner monologue and crisis management which feels exhausting at times, but I think we are supposed to feel that way. By slowly revealing Serena's past throughout the novel, Anders does a marvelous job at showing us TRULY how far she has fallen from the person that she used to be, and why Jamie goes through the effort she does to rebuild their relationship.

I mentioned that this is obviously a personal story. Jamie is trans, but the novel is not about her finding that identity; although there is a B story of transphobic students who harass Jamie. But it is a treatise about the stress in managing relationships. It’s about over-extending your attention to one loved one at the expense of another. It talks about the consequences of choosing to keep your feelings to yourself for feat of hurting those you care for. Ultimately, it is a novel about coming to terms with honestly understanding what you want, even if you can't have it anymore.

It’s a good story. For those of us who are introverted people who get to do what we are passionate about, the story feels very familiar. For those of us who are no longer those people (Hi, it’s me), looking upon Jamie’s bohemian life feels cozy and familiar, especially if you sold out and went corporate, as so many of us Word Nerds ultimately do. The language can be jarring at times; again, I’m reviewing an ARC and so my copy may not be the novel’s Super-Saiyan ultimate form. But I think that is also okay; Jamie’s story makes the reader feel overwhelmed at times, there’s nothing wrong with it being written that way. It makes the story’s heavier, marquee, stick-with-you-forever moments hit all the harder.

[Karen Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my gosh, what a wonderful story!

Charle Jane Anders tells great stories of magic and fantasy and families in all their loving messiness, but this is one that steps up in ways beyond genre. Yes, as titled, the story is about Jamie, who decides to teach her widowed mother how to do magic, and yes there are disasters.

But this book is about grief, how we do/don't process grief and loss, the layers of generational lessons we learn in how to share/hide our feelings, and the courage to step beyond fear and into vulnerability.

Jamie is a struggling graduate student in a relationship with Ro, and choosing to reconnect with her remaining parent, Serena. Her motives come from love and caring - and a hope that teaching her mother how to do magic will help push her mother out of a static depression that has lasted since the death of her beloved wife Mae.

The book is also interspersed with women's writings from the 1700's, Jamie's literary focus. The pieces Charlie Jane chooses (and creates) are marvelous, reflective of time and moral choices that draw a beautiful, rainbow-inflected line to the contemporary story being told.

This is a book about relationships: parent/child relationships, partner/lover relationships, person/system relationships are all important parts of this story, and Charlie Jane does a stellar job finding the moments of joy and intimacy that keep us connected to each other and the world. But these relationships are also fraught with challenges and pain, and Charlie Jane lets us grapple with these complexities along with her characters. Where and how we engage with each other, with our loves and losses and the changes in our lives all blossom in this story.

Technically, this book could be considered fantasy, as it does contain magic. I read a lot of different types of fiction including fantasy, and I have to say: the magic here is the most realistic portrayal of magic in the world that I've read. This is not a contemporary world with fairies and unicorns tossed into it - this is a contemporary world where some people practice ways to focus their intentions and hopes that may result in certain outcomes. As Jamie keeps trying to explain to her mother, magic is something to "do" not talk about and analyze. In the hands of another author, this is a story of how faith may or may not support us in times of crisis and loss. In Charlie Jane's hands, the way magic plays out is as unique as each individual who uses it or is affected by it, without dogma attached.

This is truly the first book I've ever read (and I've been reading for close to 60 years) where I truly felt "seen" in the story. Serena and Mae are my age, from my community of queer women who were making courageous, fantastical, and outrageous choices in how to live full lives with or without children. Jamie is so much the next generation of queers in my life that my heart both aches for her and bursts with pride. Charlie Jane makes me feel like the struggle is worth it. Even with the disasters along the way.

[Mag Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Books for the advance copy!

This book is an incredibly ambitious display of insight into family, change, grief, and perspective. There are so many layers to the story it’s almost difficult to keep all of them in hand. While I really admire Anders’s close details, incisive commentary, and academic thoroughness, the story did really lag in places that felt too disconnected from its core. But it also makes me want to wander through the local woods to find sites of natural reclamation and start casting spells, and anyone who enjoys solid literary analysis and/or critical cultural thought will find Jamie a highly relatable protagonist.

We follow Jamie, a young trans woman working on her PhD dissertation, as she struggles with the death of one parent, attempts to reconnect with her living mother, clashes with conservative students in her classroom, and exists under the judgmental eye of late-stage capitalism. She toils on her dissertation, taking deep dives into the lives of 18th-century women who transgressed social boundaries and wrote their experiences in novels. In the backdrop of it all, she casts spells in secret, workings in nature that draw on her truest wants — but the small innocence of these moments is shattered when she tries to teach her mother how to be a witch as well, and magic goes from being a comfort to being a disaster.

I loved the way Jamie’s dissertation research is woven together with her contemporary experiences; I actually wish this had been a bigger part of the novel. There’s a lot to be said here for the way perspective changes, switching between subject and object, moving between being the observer to having the experience of being viewed and analyzed. The interwoven timelines of the 18th-century women and writing of Emily (the novel Jamie is researching), the younger Serena and Mae (Jamie’s parents) getting together and figuring out their relationship, and finally Jamie and the older Serena finding each other again really worked for me in tandem with the conservative bad actors shadowing the plot. The addition of Jamie’s relationship with Ro (Jamie’s spouse), however, really dragged me out of everything else. I found Ro a particularly unlikeable character, and every scene Ro was in slowed to a crawl for me. Much as I love to see nonbinary rep, they felt like more of an unnecessary complication than an actual part of Jamie’s life.

This is the sort of book that will speak to a very particular audience. The dialogue is largely unnatural, and the prose style never really stays in a particular POV; often it feels as though Anders is addressing the reader directly for a paragraph or several before returning to the story. This is a slow read that will make you think, and in that, it really succeeds.

——
I spent about 8.5 hours reading this book.

[Sol]

i didnt realize that the genre-bending nature of this novel would take as much getting-used-to as it did.

this is a story of how a mother (Serena, who lost the love of her life) and a daughter (Jamie, who on top of everything happening in this novel is also pursuing grad school) grieve Mae. we also see Ro, Jamie's partner, supporting Jamie and being a solid and steady part of the family, pretty much through thick and thin because they do experience some rough patches here and there. because of the title alone i expected magic to be a plot element upon which the story will hinge upon but magic is not too much on the forefront here, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. the novel's triumph is in the way it showed the story of this queer family moving through grief in a world rife with bigots.

several times though i felt as if i were reading a completely different book, one that's nonfiction in nature, only to be dropped back into the story i was initially expecting to delve deeper into.

i suppose the point of this novel is to break genres which i suppose it did by telling a story in omniscient pov (distant third person pov via jamie's and then serena's lens. and then we have snippets of what Jamie is nerding out on aka her grad school research). i tried to be extremely patient with the genre-whiplash for the sake of getting to know these characters and coming along their journey to healing and reconciliation but the writing style felt like a tall barrier to scale. almost halfway through the book, another barrier came up in the form of annoyance with Jamie although that also may have been a goalpost here? if so, goal achieved for me. Jamie basically intellectualizes everything including her own emotions like her rage and her sadness and her love etcetc but when it comes to Magic (which for a good chunk of the book, and without Ro's angry prompting, she refuses to call it), she's all emotion and zero logic. where's the Jamie that nerds out on everything, when it matters? understandable too when Ro got angry.

the historical snippets (as in, Jamie's research) also feel wildly disjointed with the story being told, at least in the narrative aspect. if we were to argue also that looking into the history of other queer people could be the bigger picture and the history of Jamie's family is a zooming into a very specific point in time, then i'd say the goal of meshing them together makes sense. it's just that in the narrative aspect this goal fell flat for me; or it could be a valid observation that this narration style simply did not work for me.

all that said even despite the fact that tbe narration and the overall writing style did not work for me i still think that this is a good novel. i loved the imperfect characters, and i find that if you had more patience that someone as busy as myself then you'd be able to sit down and truly, genuinely enjoy this.

thank you NetGalley and publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jamie's mother Serena has not recovered from losing partner Mae (nor, really, has Jamie herself fully dealt with losing her mother). As a girl, Jamie discovered her own form of magic and decides to teach it to Serena. Only her mother's magic ends up in a small disaster, revealing how little Jamie knows about how magic works and about her mother.

Meanwhile Jamie is also working on her dissertation on Sarah Fielding and 18th century women writers, encountering some pushback from a conservative and transphobic student, and navigating bumps in her relationship with Ro. Jamie's dissertation work is heavily threaded in, including some of the texts themselves. This should have been my jam as an English major, but it was a little clunky in execution: a story within a story, lots of second and third connections I couldn't keep track of. I liked how it explored these authors overshadowed by their male peers and aspects of gender nonconformity and queer history, but it didn't really connect enough with the emotional core of the overall story, and the ultimate parallel that seemed to connect them fell a little flat for me. We also get more of Serena's story and the origins and arc of her relationship to Mae.

There was a lot going on, and it didn't all successfully cohere for me. What I did really like: magic as requiring sacrifice and truly knowing what one desires. How magic can't make grief go away, but you can start to heal through community and relationships. (I liked the introduction of a community later in the book and wanted to see more of that and earlier!) I also like how Jamie and Ro's relationship played out in a realistic fashion as Ro contends with Jamie's mistakes.

[Space Station Mir · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was honored to be one in a chain of readers sharing an ARC from the author. This was such a beautiful, melancholy yet hopeful, contained yet genre-expansive, story of an 18th century Brit lit grad student who teaches her mother magic, with somewhat disastrous consequences. I enjoyed the embedded 18th century Brit lit discourse and the interpolated fictional 18th century novel, and particularly the spotlight on real 18th century women writers. The novel wrestles with the ethics, tension, and power dynamics of bringing liminal spaces and people into the forefront, and the very real effects of reputation and appearances on people's lives, in the 18th century and today. It uses magic kind of as a metonym for those power tensions--how bringing those people and works of art into public view can be useful and powerful but there's also backlash and consequences. It's also very much about the central queer relationships between Jamie and her mother Serena, and Jamie and her wife Ro, and the dynamics of that love and the desire to protect each other, the latter of which can be as destructive as it is powerful. Lessons in Magic and Disaster pulls no punches, and is itself a kind of quiet, liminal but powerful (I keep coming back to that word!) space for queer, nerdy, English lit majors to contemplate their discourse. Highly, highly recommend--for nerds, queers, former English majors, Brit lit lovers, Charlie Jane Anders fans, and anyone whose interest is piqued!

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tender, relevant and incredibly timely exploration of grief, transphobia, LGBTQIA+ rights, messy, real relationships, healing after loss, and a mother and daughter dynamic which no doubt will resonate for many. It’s the struggle of reconnecting after grief has sundered a family.

We follow Jamie, a pHD student attempting to wrangle her somewhat estranged mother Serena back into the world after the loss of her wife, and Jamie’s mother, Mae. Jamie’s solution? Tell her mother she’s a witch, of course.

The novel pings back and forth between the beginning of Serena and Mae’s relationship, their struggles, and Jamie’s perspective as she faces her own challenges. And Jamie’s own process of healing and navigating the transphobia she experiences might all lie in understanding the 18th century novel she’s writing her dissertation on…

This is a emotional and deeply queer centric narrative, with intense analytical commentary on the state of the world - particularly Western (American) politics for queer communities.

I found that at times the deep focus on Jamie’s pHD writing and literary analysis made the pacing quite slow, and interfered at times with the present plot. I also would have preferred more focus on Serena and Mae’s relationship as while I understood the interesting mirrors that the fictional novel brought to our narrative and which worked as a way for Jamie to understand her own journey, I found that this overrode, at times, the inclusion of Serena’s and Mae’s relationship - which at its heart, the loss of which was the major plot point of the novel.

However, I enjoyed this celebration of queerness, this narrative of persevering through strife to find joy and working through complex internal landscapes. If you enjoy character driven introspective stories, which deeply focus on romantic and familial relationships and communication alongside a commentary on queer history and movements through the lens of current politics, you’ll eat this one up!

[Beige]

Somehow I was first in line when my library finally got this so I read it quickly as I could so others could discover its joys :D

With the Alice Hoffman comp I thought this was going to be fluffy and cozy but its very much rooted in the here and now with all of the vitriol of right wing media, and the endless commodification of higher education, housing etc. All that PLUS....loving, messy queer marriages and family, AND "forgotten" women authors of 18th century britian, AND the kind of magic being practiced today by your witchy friends and neighbours. It's a lot to pull together! Early on I wasn't sure if it was going to work for me, but I decided to just relax and open my self up to the story Anders wanted to tell. And I was easily swayed by Ander's characters with all of their honesty, soul searching and loving kindness.

I think this will appeal to a lot of different readers: fans of historical fiction and classics, low fantasy, cozy fantasy and queer lit fic.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many thanks to Charlie Jane, who sent me an uncorrected galley proof as part of a reading chain in advance of publication!

This is a great book and an intensely personal and intimate character-driven novel. There's magic, yes, but it's of a diffuse, almost Tolkienesque sort that is so deeply embedded in the nature of the world that it's almost invisible. Until it isn't. What the magic really does though is to drive the relationships between the characters, which is what this story is all about. The subplot about the mystery embedded in an anonymous 18th century novel was delightful in so many ways, not least by elegantly mirroring the modern-day plot until joining neatly with it for the denoument. It's not going to be for everybody, but if you've read a Charlie Jane book before you probably weren't expecting a stock sword-and-sorcery adventure. That said, it's not particularly cozy either, and I found it hard to read at points when it brought up my own relationship trauma. But good art isn't always comfortable, and this is a fantastic work of art.

[Kya · Rating 4 out of 5]

☆ 3.75 Stars rounded up☆

Thank you to Tor Books for the ARC book in exchange for a fair review!

This story has so many layers, an American literary grad student-teacher/modern witch trying to reconnect with her mum after her mama passed away, her mother's history of her queer relationship and bringing up our MC, the literary novel the MC is attempting to determine the true author of and the historical elements of their life, and the novel that author wrote. You can really tell Anders has won awards for her writing with some of the beautiful prose, however, sometimes the pacing and lack of depth or urgency, sometimes fell flat. There was unnecessary focus on race (from a character who I assumed was white - I couldn't pinpoint for certain) where it made the section feel like reading a tweet rather than a genre-bending speculative fiction novel. There was one particular sex scene that felt so uncomfortably forced, straight after a parental connection moment, that I got whiplash, despite considering myself quite sex positive, and then the blurb refers to Emily as a magical book, which isn't really the case even when it's 'revealed' near the end.

This book is inherently more about queer people, women's suffering and literary history than it is about 'magic' which almost felt like a subplot after reading through the whole thing, the blurb really felt like a misrepresentation of the novel, which I still enjoyed, but wasn't what I was expecting. 
All in all, if you're a queer person who is interested in English lit, attempting to deal with grief or have a higher reading comprehension and want a challenge, then this is certainly the book for you!

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this writing style just isn’t for me and I had to stop reading it about 10% in. There is a lot of inner monologue and not a lot of dialogue. It felt like it jumped all over the place. And while I appreciate the concept of magic as something you do but don’t think about, working the first two chapters, this is said about a dozen times and it just became too repetitive for me. It became a show me, don’t tell me situation.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for this ARC!

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Titan Books for the proof in exchange for an honest review! ✨ 3.5 ⭐

Lessons in Magic and Disaster is an intimate, raw, heartfelt story of a young trans woman witch who teaches her mother magic.

Following the death of her wife, Jamie’s mother, Serena, has sequestered herself away from the rest of the world. Jamie is attempting to balance her academic career, life with her partner, Ro, and her relationship with her mother as they navigate magic together in an attempt to heal. But Jamie has not told Ro about magic, and Serena’s magical practice is concerning Jamie. Secrets pile up, and tensions rise.

The story flips between Jamie in the present, and flashbacks of Serena and Mae. Gaining an insight into Serena and Mae’s story was a wonderful way to better get to know Serena, truly understand what happened to Mae which has long been a secret, as well as what Jamie experienced growing up and how that has gone on to shape her relationship with her mother.

Jamie is an academic, desperately seeking to understand the secrets of a three-hundred-year-old magical book that she feels a deep connection to. Throughout the book, we see snippets of the books she is studying, and the parallels were beautiful.

The witchcraft in this book doesn’t slot neatly into fantasy or magical realism, but leans more into more of a ritualistic, pragmatic, intuitive practice that Jamie and Serena hope to use to navigate personal difficulties, relationships, healing, and grief.

If you enjoy queer stories, complex relationships, books within books, queer history, and a hint of magic, this may be the book for you! 🦋

Only real issues I had
- It took me a while to feel invested in the character
- The pacing a was a little tricky to begin with as well, but I found it engaging towards the middle
- Some of the academia side of the story lost me, and I found myself wondering why a lot of this was relevant. I think this will be a marmite element for a lot of readers

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anders really wowed me with this layered story that's part queer family portrait, part exploration of modern-day witchcraft, and part literary criticism. I was especially invested in the flashback sections where we see the story of how Jamie's moms met. Grief is a common thread running through all the different layers, along with the impact of public shaming campaigns on already marginalized populations. The women authors Jamie's studying for her dissertation basically deal with the 18th-century version of cancel culture, finding themselves expelled from personal and professional circles for daring to defy gender norms or be glimpsed hanging out with the wrong crowd. In the present-day narrative, Jamie and her moms also get targeted, more or less for being queer people trying to live their lives. This is a complex, refreshing, and ultimately heart-warming story about honoring your own desires in a world that sometimes shames you for wanting anything at all. Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for my first ever ARC!

[max · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finally giving up on this after 200 pages of nothing happening. 200 pages of the MC just… thinking about things. It’s boring and patronizing and insufferably White Queer. It does, however, make me feel good about my decision to leave Boston.

[Tanya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc of Lessons in Magic and Disaster. I'm rating it 2.5 stars.

Review Summary:
This book is part historical novel and part lit fic with a small dash of fantasy. Its main focus is on exploring queer history, LGBTQphobia, cancel culture and trolling, grief, and family bonds, and it does so across three timelines: modern-day USA, shown through the eyes of Jamie; the US in the '90s and '00s, shown through the eyes of Jamie's mother, Serena; and eighteenth-century England, which is shown in a series of letters and stories between various women.

This book is hard to review because it had some five-star moments but also a lot of two-star moments. It shines when it explores queer history and experiences of grief, and by and large, the plot is interesting. However, the beginning was rough, the dialogue and character interactions often took me completely out of the story, and the book's at times weird about race and cancel culture. There were also some minor things about the magic system that didn't make a lot of sense given the setting.

The writing itself verges from bad to beautiful. There were a couple of paragraphs that I highlighted because they were so poetic and impactful. But they were the exception, not the rule.

In More Detail:
As I said, there are several things that I like about this book. There's a lot of queer history and identities. There's also a big focus on eighteenth-century literature, which is always fun. And, I appreciate the way the three timelines weave together, focusing on some of the same themes while also having their own flavour. They enhance the other storylines without getting repetitive.

At the same time, I had a lot of issues, and those are probably worth breaking down one by one.

- Character Interactions and Dialogue
This book is heavy on characters using academic, politically-informed, and therapy-informed dialogue (which is ironic, because the book also criticises people on multiple occasions for things like "rote activist phrases"). I often found myself thinking "this is too formulaic; people don't speak to each like that in real life".

But even leaving that to one side, the characters just come out with ridiculous statements. Take our villain Greg, who tells Jamie, "You're a good teacher, and I hope you stick with it, even though you're a degenerate groomer." Who would ever think or say something like that? That's such a ridiculous contradiction.

Or there's Ro, who when Jamie's desperately trying to find her mother before [spoiler and content warning]her mother finishes killing herself, goes on a tangent about their economics dissertation before telling Jamie "I will support whatever you decide. Like, if you just want to get pancakes, and deal with your mother later." Like, after Jamie's mother's already dead?

Even with all the therapy-informed dialogue, these characters often treat each other in a way that's really unhealthy. One example is when the narrative tells us that Jamie needs to provide unconditional love to her mother, promising that no matter what she does, Jamie will love her, even though Jamie's mother nearly killed Ro.

- Cancel Culture and Trolling
A recurring theme in the book is characters' lives being ruined through cancel culture and online pile-ons leading to them losing their jobs, friendships, and social standing. In the end, it turns out that on all occasions this happened due to the characters being queer or left-wing, but for the majority of the book, we're encouraged to assume that a major character was cancelled for saying something problematic and likely prejudiced. The actual incident is kept a mystery while the book foreshadows that Serena was "torn apart by her friends" on Twitter. It tells us that she lost not only her job but a lot of her friends after being recorded "talking shit, the sort of stuff you could take out of context". For context, Serena is queer and most of her friends seemed to be left-wing and queer — so why did she lose so many friends for what turned out to be some pretty basic, intersectional feminism 101 comments about sex work?

There's a lot you can explore when it comes to online pile-ons, conservatives piling pressure on queer and trans people's employers, and the fear of saying the wrong thing. But this weird "Gotcha!" just feels like a cheap way to handle it.

- Race and Racism
The book reads as hyper-aware of race even though it's not the main focus.

The main characters all seem to be white, but minor characters are diverse. However, it really stuck out to me that the book uses the topic of race and racism to show us that our white protagonist Jamie is a good person. It tells us that the "queer and BIPOC students...always seem to be picking up what Jamie's putting down", that white kids (no other descriptors) went out of their way to bully Jamie at school for not fitting in, and one of two main things we learn about her work teaching is that three white students submit stories "that are racist and/or full of cultural appropriation...It falls to Jamie to lead the class...in a discussion of whether this is Your Story To Tell." Which Jamie isn't wrong about, but the only times racism shows up in a book shouldn't be to demonstrate that a character is a good person. To use the activist language of the novel itself, it feels like the book is co-opting racism to present Jamie as a victim, even though Jamie is herself white. (There's also the moment when Serena thinks describes a character in passing as "Anita, who obsessed about antidiscrimination lawsuits"; I'm not sure if Anita is meant to be Latina, but it would be disappointingly ironic if she is, given that the book regularly brings up microaggressions against queer characters.)

I also wish books would stop introducing a long list of characters, each with their racial identity, unless they're the main white characters who go undescribed. It's not great when I immediately know the race of the majority of the secondary characters, even when at times that's the only thing I know about them, but I'm there deducing that the main characters are white because of things the book saying that they one of them is receiving microaggressions for being a fat lesbian (and presumably, if she weren't white, the book would say something like "fat lesbian of colour").

- The Magic System
The magic system is an example of a pretty widespread element of modern witchcraft. However, for some reason, these characters use Discord to arrange meet-ups but have to invent these very basic magical practices and believe that Jamie is the only person to teach another person witchcraft. To be honest, I'd have been fine with it had they not been using Discord. But since they were, I just found myself thinking that they could have saved themselves a lot of time if they'd also thought to use Google or Reddit. They also have those on their phone, right?

Also, it's kind of disappointing that this magic system involves littering in natural places, with the characters often leaving man-made objects that won't degrade behind. I get the theory behind the magic system, but it's a shame that they didn't then find a way to not contribute to the destruction of the planet.

But other than these two minor points, I liked the magical elements. I'd definitely consider the book to have more elements of historical fiction than fantasy, but the magic system was enjoyable.

- Other Issues
I just didn't think the prose was consistently good. Some of it was delightful; a lot of it was bad. This was especially noticeable at the beginning of the story, when the book relied on telling us paragraphs (or even pages!) of backstory instead of showing us who a character is through their interactions. But a lot of the time, the writing also felt like it belonged more in the group chat/Discord channel rather than in published fiction. And there's regular use of cultural references that are only relevant to a narrow window of time, which left me wondering things like "wait, what meme is that? and without knowing what the meme is... what is this paragraph meant to say about this character/situation?"

There were also occasional small plot holes, but they were minor.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The world contains a stable high ration of therapists to witches, and not only because witches are rare.” Quick warning before you read this—I read this book blindly with no knowledge of what to expect, so I’d encourage you to do the same. But if you want to know why I loved it, keep reading! I promise that I am not presenting actual spoilers. I also doubt that anything I will write will even come close to a solid representation of all of the amazing thought that was poured into this short novel. But I’ll try. “Some books stay with you even as you evolve, level up, taste disappointment, and maybe you owe something to those books.” (Yes, please.)

It seems like I’ve been reading quite a few excellent books about lesbian witches/vampires this year. Now this book isn’t exactly that, but it’s pretty much close enough. And, I can present arguments that it is most likely the best. It’s a very complex book, but also easy to read—we have multiple accurate timelines, literature, philosophy, complex moral dilemmas, and such beautifully dynamic, complicated, intense characters that I just kept getting drawn into . . . pretty much everything (and quite a bit more that I will not mention in order to avoid spoilers). There are also plenty of terrifying asides that hold a mirror up to much of the ugliness we are currently experiencing “in a post-truth world.” But this grimness is counterbalanced with such beautiful writing: it’s packed with sentences that are just so fun, you will have to just pause and re-read them a few times. Anders is a master of producing such vivid imagery and intense emotion with an economical limit of words: probably exactly how she packed so much into a 300 page novel.

I’ll start with the magic system—it is unique and absolutely seems plausible. During a lonely period in her childhood, Jamie discovers some basic magical principals. First, you have to figure out your true desire. Second, you have to find an abandoned location that was once manipulated and cared for by humans, but has fallen into ruin for some time, and third you cannot think or talk about magic directly, but have to allude to everything. It all starts with mindset. “Jamie suspects capitalism is a huge part of why magic is difficult: nobody knows what they want because we’ve all been brainwashed to want garbage.” And deep self-analysis. “Sometimes fear is just a signpost to the thing you want most.” Jamie’s mother is in a bad place mentally and physically, and has been barely going through the motions of a stagnant non-life for years. “The unfairness of this is so huge that it’s impossible to see the whole thing. You can only see pieces.”Jamie decides to help her out by performing a spell and then teaching her mother some basics. It turns out that they are much more powerful together, and they start to discover that there is so much more to magic than what Jamie previously discovered, and that they really might be able to do some far reaching good. “For maybe the first time ever, magic is more than a Band-Aid over a hole in the world.”

Jamie’s relationship with her mother, Serena, is complicated, and only becomes increasingly so as they move on to spells of a slightly different nature. How broken is Serena, exactly, after everything in her life imploded nearly simultaneously . . . and is revenge her only path to peace? It also seems to be the general consensus that Serena’s wife was the stabilizing source of kindness and generosity in their relationship—the best of all of them. Who can possibly reach Serena now? I absolutely loved witnessing the dynamic and power shifts as mother and daughter work together and then start to converge. And it’s heartbreaking watching Jamie try to balance her mother’s healing with her partner’s needs. As well as numerous flashbacks where Serena and May had to balance their relationship, conflicting career goals, and raising their precocious child. “All those times we talked about not compromising who we were. We were kidding ourselves, weren’t we? People get older and they just want to hold back the tide of shit any way they can.”

Jamie’s relationship with Ro is enviable, “the truest joy in life is when someone else holds in their hands a relief map of all your most errant nonsense. Money is fake, fame is bullshit, but intimacy is a bloody treasure.” Because all of the characters are so nuanced and well-formed, you can actually witness the necessary compromises that maintain a strong relationship. And understand the weight of the decisions that start to shatter them.

Jamie is also a grad student lecturer, and we get to see the workings and struggles of her thesis with real literature samples (I also am curious if part of the purpose of this book is to pay homage to this literature? It certainly frames it to maximum effect. It also demonstrates how history repeats itself, and that we have been fighting the same battles for so long now—although I have to admit that I wish all of the literary excerpts were genuine.). As the only trans professor in her department in a university full of bigots and budget cuts, her career and research often seem unsurmountable, “the trustees are awake and you can see shreds of old dreams between their teeth.” And then when a particularly volatile student attempts to discredit her in a manner quite similar to Serena’s downfall, Jamie has to turn to the defensive, “all she can remember is being so cautious her teeth always hurt by the end of class.” But was she careful enough? “The news media is even more fucked than academia lately. Anything that helps the world make sense is being sabotaged.”