Lessons in Magic and Disaster
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4.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In the vein of Alice Hoffman and Charlie Jane Anders's own All the Birds in the Sky comes a novel full of love, disaster, and magic.
A young witch teaches her mother how to do magic--with very unexpected results--in this relatable, resonant novel about family, identity, and the power of love.
Jamie is the average New England academic in-training--she has a strong queer relationship, generational trauma, and an esoteric dissertation proposal. But she has one extraordinary secret: she's also a powerful witch.
Serena, Jamie's mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has left are memories.
Jamie’s busy digging into a three-hundred-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn't know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those secrets are leading Serena down a destructive path.
Now it's up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic, before her mother ruins both of their lives.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This charming fantasy asks a deeply relatable question: If you had actual magic, could you be make your incredibly stressful life and the world better, or would it just make everything even worse? Jamie is a witch who uses her power to improve her life in little ways, like holding onto the grant she needs to finish her PhD research. In an effort to help her mother, Serena, cope with the grief she still suffers from her wife’s death, Jamie tries teaching Serena magic, which goes catastrophically wrong. We were amazed at how many plotlines and themes Charlie Jane Anders manages to pack into a turbulent but ultimately hopeful novel, from balancing family and personal responsibilities to academic workplace politics. But mostly this is about the search for magic and grace in a world plagued by serious social problems.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nebula Award winner Anders (All the Birds in the Sky) brings gentle humor and a clear-eyed sense of justice to this lovely standalone contemporary fantasy. Literature grad student Jamie Sandthorne has a secret. She doesn't fully know how it works and can't think about it too much, but for years she has quietly been practicing witchcraft. Years after the death of her mother Mae, Jamie decides to share this gift with Serena, her surviving mother, who's still trapped in a spiral of grief. However, fierce, driven former lawyer Serena sees magic not as a gift but a weapon, and ropes Jamie into a mission of revenge. Anders lets the unintended consequences of this revenge quest unfold alongside a clever framing narrative centered on a pair of 18th-century women novelists and uses the dual plots to tease out a skillful commentary on social precarity and the way vulnerable people trying to make a difference can become casualties in the culture war. With a lovably messy trans protagonist and a deep, tender-hearted exploration of grief, guilt, and the difficulty of asking for the things one wants, this is perfect for seasoned readers of queer feminist speculative fiction looking for a cozy escape that still challenges.
Customer Reviews
Modern Fantasy set in Contemporary Times
“Lessons in Magic and Disaster” is the newly released novel by Charlie Jane Anders. It’s a fantasy novel set in contemporary times. More than anything, it’s about family relationships, both regular and found.
The protagonist of the novel is Jamie, who is a graduate student working on her PhD in Literature. Her studies lead us to the story within the story, which involves literature written by women in the middle 1700s. Jamie is also trying to help her mother Serena re-engage with the world. She’s been withdrawn and depressed since the death of Mae. We meet Mae and see her life with Serena and Jamie during flashbacks.
So, where’s the magic and disaster? Well, it seems Jamie has also discovered witchcraft. It involves casting spells in abandoned places. She decides to share this knowledge with her mother as a way of engaging with her and drawing her out of her withdrawal. This is where the lessons in magic begin.
This novel is a modern and diverse tale that involves gender, LGBTQ issues, and interpersonal relationships of all kinds. The magic forms only a small part of the overall narrative. I found it to be an engaging story, and I found myself empathizing with various characters.