RAUGHHHH OHHH THIS WAS SOOOO MY THING. sarah gailey my god how do you keep finding my favorite specific tropes and combining them. holy shittttt.

i'm not usually really into mysteries but if given the right backdrop i can get into them and this was just perfect for me. i love the setting of noir and all i just tend to get so bogged down in the details that the reading experience becomes less fun. but i was actually able to follow along with this mystery pretty well and actually "solved the case" a Little bit before it had to be explained to me. go me!

Ohhhh These Characters. all of them got on my nerves at times in their own special ways but i can forgive them for it because they made such a fun reading experience in general. big old soft spot for loser detectives and ivy was great for that. a lot of reviews say she's too self pitying or whiny and i mean. i kind of get it but also i found her almost uncomfortably relatable at times. laughs nervously in "my brother is the scientific one and the overachiever and the one with actual everyday applicable skills and i'm the Artsy One who does pretty good in school but not like straight a's" you know. whatever. whatever. this is a fucking book review. rahul was sweet. it's rare to see a bisexual male love interest and i liked that. just all around a sweetie pie, not trying to be brooding or super hot or some dumb bullshit, he was literally just some guy which is pretty much my favorite kind of male love interest. dylan and alexandria were SOOOOOOOOO! i LOVE messed up kids who kind of think their issues are the Most Important in the Whole World but then also kind of avoid actual serious topics out of fear. and i got like a big evil grin on about them kind of being foils to ivy and tabitha. speaking of tabitha i saved her for last because i've got like...thoughts.

Spoiler

i mean like i didn't haaaaate the reveal at the end i guess but it was sort of unsatisfying. if tabitha had really been motivated by not being able to save her mom the whole time it feels like she should have had a more serious reaction to ivy accusing her of not being able to do that exact thing earlier on? it felt like that should have remained in ivy's head the whole time or someone else told her that that would be impossible instead of tabitha saying it because it just feels so on the nose to bring it back later on. tabitha testing the limits of magic and Actually Doing It and then fucking up in a terrible gory way was kind of delicious though. i eat that shit up. hubristic downfall and all that! it does annoy me that she was then made out to be some kind of Master Manipulator who never genuinely wanted to mend her relationship with ivy or whatever. idk. i wish she had been portrayed as a little more unhinged throughout and not just at the very end so it doesn't seem like her whole personality just did a 180.

the magic system was interesting, if not fully fleshed out. the healing magic especially. the high school setting and kids doing like High Schooler Magic was kind of funny and charming. the whole overarching themes of youth and things that seem important when you're a kid vs when you're an adult and how adults perceive kids and vice versa and figuring our your identity as a teenager was also something that really hit as someone who's on that precarious cusp between childhood and adulthood (college student). couldn't help but smile about the dick shaped clouds. yeah that'd happen if magic was real.

was kind of dissatisfied with how sad the ending was. i know, i know. i am a loser sappy bitch. i just really prefer getting closure and it felt like we didn't really get that with anyone. but i guess that's a personal style preference or whatever. but in so many other ways this book was So Me in ways i couldn't even predict! kind of awesome! everyone say thank you fucked up women!