Magic for Liars

This is a really hard review to write. I agonized for several minutes about what the star rating should be. So the good and then the bad!
The good:
I once again love Gailey's prose style. I am not an English major so don't ask me to quantify what makes it so awesome.
I always appreciate when it makes sense why characters didn't communicate fully. A physical separation combined with a trauma would definitely cause two people to see a situation super differently. Outside of a therapy setting the passage of time decreased the odds of a real honest conversation.
I loved the nurse character. She scares me in a good way.
The teenagers felt more like teenagers than a lot of other books I read. Not perfect, the mean girl trope was a bit much, but pretty good.
The parlor room scene was pretty great, though it did have one sort of weird gap.
The bad
- All of the teachers should have been informed that the investigator didn't have a magic background. I know she asked the woman who hired her not to share that info, but it would have been more realistic if that information had been already shared with the adults in the room. I'm willing to buy the kids not being informed.
- I know this book isn't a romance and that its just a minor subplot. That being said, the romance plot used one of my least favorite tropes in a really dumb way.
- Why is she the only one immune to the weird persuasive power?? It is never explained. I kept waiting to find out the main character was immune to magic she didn't consent to, as like a plot twist or something. But nope. Just randomly immune. For reasons. Argh.

Murder at Hogwarts and a muggle PI comes to investigate?! I'm in. Unfortunately, it's a fine story that didn't live up to my expectations. I think the character, worldbuilding and plot are the key things in any story. The characters were not memorable or interesting. Ivy (the main) is fleshed out a little, but she was very one-dimensional. She's really the only one that got any kind of personality. The worldbuilding was minimal. It was pretty much “magic exists, but most of the kids use cell phones anyway.” The plot... that was a little interesting. I really did like the murder at the magic school and only the no-maj can figure it out. I, mostly, liked the resolution, and I really liked the reason. Ultimately, I won't warn anyone away from this book, but I won't be recommending it either.

4.5! really liked this one. as much as i love high fantasy and the worldbuilding/exciting info that comes with that its a nice change of pace to have a urban fantasy as a nice easy read. i still got to satisfy my love for the fantasy elements with the interesting magic system, as well as my (poor broken) magic-school loving heart. i loved how they showed all the cute dumb magic teens would get up to at school (and how much ivy hated it). I think that having a non-magical protagonist was a good choice, it meant it was simple to ease me into the magic systems with good excuses to explain stuff.

i enjoyed the romantic relationships, casual lgbt rep and surprisingly i really liked ivy's character. i think the grumpy alcoholic detective is pretty over-done, but i think this subverts(?) it well. i really felt for her emotionally and i was invested in the murder mystery.

i liked the ending and the direction it went in...

i don't have many coherent thoughts about this book lol IT WAS GOOD!!!!!