Devi Nair
📱📖 Read on Kobo 📃 352 pages ⏱ Approx. 4 hours 🏷️ Publisher: Avon 🗓️ Published: October 1, 2024 🧙♀️ Genre: Romantasy
I was expecting something like Practical Magic meets The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. hat I didn’t expect was writing that felt firmly stuck in a high school mindset.
The biggest issue for me was the character development. These are women in their thirties, yet their inner monologues, reactions, and romantic tension played out like teenage crushes passing notes in class. The dialogue leaned juvenile, the emotional responses felt exaggerated, and I struggled to believe in the relationships, romantic or familial, because none of them behaved like adults who’ve lived a little.
That mismatch made it hard to connect emotionally or care about the stakes of Oak Haven’s magical crisis. I can appreciate a bit of whimsy, but when every scene leaned on exaggerated reactions and juvenile crush energy, the spell broke for me. Halfway through, I realized I wasn’t invested enough to push through and that’s when this became a DNF.
Would I recommend it? Not my cup of potion. The premise is charming, but the execution skewed too young for me to enjoy. If you like light, low-stakes witchy rom-coms with plenty of sparkles and little substance, you might vibe with it, but I personally couldn’t finish.
Magic Missed or Just Miscast? What do you think, should cozy romantasy lean more whimsical or mature? Let me know in the comments if you finished Impractical Magic and felt differently about Scarlett and Oak Haven’s charm spell.
Originally posted at www.goodreads.com.
📱📖 Read on Kobo 📃 352 pages ⏱ Approx. 4 hours 🏷️ Publisher: Avon 🗓️ Published: October 1, 2024 🧙♀️ Genre: Romantasy
I was expecting something like Practical Magic meets The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. hat I didn’t expect was writing that felt firmly stuck in a high school mindset.
The biggest issue for me was the character development. These are women in their thirties, yet their inner monologues, reactions, and romantic tension played out like teenage crushes passing notes in class. The dialogue leaned juvenile, the emotional responses felt exaggerated, and I struggled to believe in the relationships, romantic or familial, because none of them behaved like adults who’ve lived a little.
That mismatch made it hard to connect emotionally or care about the stakes of Oak Haven’s magical crisis. I can appreciate a bit of whimsy, but when every scene leaned on exaggerated reactions and juvenile crush energy, the spell broke for me. Halfway through, I realized I wasn’t invested enough to push through and that’s when this became a DNF.
Would I recommend it? Not my cup of potion. The premise is charming, but the execution skewed too young for me to enjoy. If you like light, low-stakes witchy rom-coms with plenty of sparkles and little substance, you might vibe with it, but I personally couldn’t finish.
Magic Missed or Just Miscast? What do you think, should cozy romantasy lean more whimsical or mature? Let me know in the comments if you finished Impractical Magic and felt differently about Scarlett and Oak Haven’s charm spell.
Originally posted at www.goodreads.com.