The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

This book is FANTASTIC. I was enthralled from start to finish, and frantically looked up the author to make sure she is writing a sequel. (She is, thank goodness!) I absolutely loved the main character, Nora, and the acerbic magician Aruendiel. Even while cheering for the opposite side, I even enjoyed reading about Raclin and Ilissa, the villains of the novel.

In Nora Fischer, we have a modern, independent, feminist woman transported to a place and time where women are inferior (by nature, most think.) There are even linguistic influences that make them inferior; women speak with a lot of “um” and “well” type words in their speech, while men don't. When Nora protests that this makes women's speech sound weaker, she's told that that's “just how women speak.” Seeing her confronted with the sexism ingrained within the medieval style culture, and seeing her confront Aruendiel with how sexist it actually is, was a wonderful sub-plot of the book.

The main plot was well-paced and interesting - after being kidnapped by Ilissa at the beginning of the book, and enchanted into being a beautiful, love-struck little ninny, Nora recovers herself with the help of Aruendiel, and spends the rest of the book evading re-capture and finding her place in this new world. The descriptions are colorful, the characters are deep and fascinating, and the land and culture itself shows just how much thought went into creating this world. This is an absolutely spectacular debut novel, in my opinion, and I cannot WAIT for the sequel, since Barker did leave a few questions unanswered at the end of the book. I really can't rave about this book enough. If you like fantasy, (or Pride and Prejudice, since this book, while not attempting to be a retelling or anything, had a lot of the same feel) you should really pick this one up.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I think I'm giving up on this book. The heroine isn't a “thinking woman” and I feel like this is the author's stereotype of Millennials rearing its ugly head. Too reactive, too willing to blame everything on everyone else, and I don't think I can stand the remaining 2/3 of the book since it doesn't seem like the character grows much (I jumped to the last chapter to see what I was in for).

~Full review found on The Bent Bookworm!~

I was instantly doubtful of this book, but it came recommended by a good friend so I gave it a shot. I am happy to report that the actual reading improved the impression I had drawn based on the cover (gag) and title (odd). Overall I'm giving it 3.5 stars...I am leaning towards 4, but...the sheer length of it is taking a half star off for me. I don't mind longer books, as I read faster than average...but honestly this one could have been edited a little better, starting with less scenes of boring medieval castle chores. The writing itself is of excellent quality, I have no complaints whatsoever! Emily Barker has created a colorful world peopled with interesting characters. I finished it in about 3 days, despite the staggering 570 pages!

I'm a sucker for any books that have to do with books or bookish people, and Nora's grad school/literary critic/teacher occupation intrigued me. Her personal life woes in the beginning are oh-so-very first world, but thankfully we don't spend much time with that before she goes wandering and plunges headlong into the other world. The first, oh, about 60 pages...I felt like I was drunk and wandering around trying to figure out what was going on. At first I was extremely annoyed and though I wouldn't be able to finish the book, but then as I kept going I realized that the feeling was intentional, to make us feel how Nora feels when she first enters the alternate world. Well done indeed. Maybe keep it to 40 pages next time though.