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).

What an incredible debut novel. I found myself in love with every piece of this book. The world is so wonderfully built. The story is absolutely gripping. And the characters, oh my, gripe characters are so well-developed.

Nora is your everywoman. She's so relatable, and the. She gets pulled into the incredible world and is allowed to do things every woman has dreamt about. I could go on and on about how easy it is to fall into Nora's world and join her for the adventures she undertakes.

It's weird how much I fell in love with this book. Emily Croy Barker created such an incredible world. It was hard not to just lose myself in the world the same way Nora did. I haven't had a book pull me in so deep since last summer when I read The Fireman by Joe Hill. We need more books and worlds like these to get lost in. They're just perfect.

But seriously, I need the sequel to come out now. I need more!!