Magic for Liars

Cute world. Poor character building. Lacking plot. Waste of time.

This scarred me a little bit. The main character dealing with the disillusionment of being a mundane and never being a part of the magical world, leading to a strained relationship with her sister and a drinking problem hit pretty good. The setup was really nice, and I liked the ambiguous and bittersweet ending, but the investigation fell apart (heh) in the middle to ending area, got a bit confused as to what was going on. I also did not like the chosen one trope being real and having such a big part in this story, felt a bit off. Overall, it left quite an impression so I still recommend it.

Fun book. 3.5 the mystery was interesting

Magic for Liars is a story about things getting lost in translation when life starts going in different ways between sisters and how it can end up with an unbridgeable gap but with magic thrown in the mix.
It was an easy read and I found Ivy to be a pretty relatable character. If you miss magic schools but would rather not read another chosen one teenage story this is the book for you.

This is probably a 3.5. I liked that this wasn't a hero story. It wasn't the same-old like most of the books of this genre. However, the narrator was so annoying and I got about 3/4 of the way through before any thing picked up. That said, the concept of magic was unique! I enjoyed that.

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!!!!!

I was excited to read more Gailey after liking [b:The Echo Wife|52379735|The Echo Wife|Sarah Gailey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1588791809l/52379735.SY75.jpg|73056559] so much, but Magic for Liars didn't quite match that energy for me.

Magic for Liars follows twin sisters Ivy and Tabitha Gamble (okay, the names are great). Magic is real, and Tabitha has it. For whatever reason, Ivy does not. She works as a private investigator, mostly discovering infidelity. But then, Ivy is asked to look into a gruesome death at the magic academy where Tabitha teaches.

The Gamble twins struggle to make sense not just of what happened to the deceased, but also their relationship. How do you reconcile magic excluding you when it looped in your twin? How do you deal with the insecurity and jealousy that provokes?

This reminded me a bit of the Wayward Children series, with hints of Truly Devious and Roxane Weary.

Like Wayward Children, it just felt, and I feel mean saying this, but it didn't feel done. Some of the twists were odd and could have been interesting, but didn't feel well-justified. It felt like we were finally getting into it as it abruptly wrapped up. In the end, I just wasn't convinced or compelled.

Not my favorite, but I'm still interested in reading more Gailey.

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.

It a solid detective story, and while the world was interesting, the fact that we the audience don't get any real insight into the world of magic was a bit disappointing.

It was an interesting concept but I felt the author spent waaaay too much time on the characters insecure inner monologue about her sister and about herself. It got to the point where I was starting to feel like whole sections were just copy pasted. Not enough emphasis was placed on solving the crime.

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.

It's not as WOW as I thought it would be. The plot twist + the end result were both predictable - I expected a lot more suspects and their interrogation, and was a bit disappointed, to be honest. However, I liked the au and the relationship the two sisters have, even though it's damaged.

this book started off strong and then it became very boring. I honestly could not tell you any of the characters names or why the person who was murdered was murdered or even if it was actually a murder. it's a 2.5 star book.

Executive Summary: A pretty good story that combines the magic school trope with fantasy mystery trope in an enjoyable fashion.

Audiobook: Xe Sands did a good job with the narration. This was a few books ago now so I don't really remember it standing out one way or another. It is probably one of those books that is fine in audio, but not a must listen.

Full Review
I picked this one up after reading some best books of the year list and thinking the story and the length was a good fit for my short and light end of year criteria.

I mean the premise is a murder at a magic school, so I guess not THAT light, but it's far from grimdark fantasy too.

I listened to most of it in a single go during my holiday roadtrip and it helped pass the time quite well.

I found the main character likeable enough, but for me the main hook was the magic school trope. The fantasy detective is pretty overdone these days, but having the detective not able to do magic was a nice twist on things to set this apart.

The mystery itself was decent, but not great. I don't go out of my way to try to guess what happened, but I've read enough books that sometimes it just seems apparent to me. This was one of those, but not until a good portion of the book was over.

Overall this was a good listen and is nice because it's stand alone. That's pretty hard to come by these days, and I wouldn't be surprised if a second book gets written at some point.

Okay - I've finally figured out why I haven't given Gailey higher than a 3 star yet.

Gailey has this ability to come up with really fascinating plots. Magic for Liars is about a non magical woman being asked to solve a murder mystery at a magical school. We also have some familial drama. Between Magic for Liars and River of Teeth I realized just how much character exploration we get. We get really interesting and nuanced individuals that I want to read about. What I want from their plots is to have more to it. If it's a mystery I want to be taken aback when we come to the reveals.

My big issue lies with the need for further details. Maybe it's just how I am as a reader but I want to be able to really envision the surroundings and feel as though I'm a part of the scenery. This is something I had a hard time with when reading River of Teeth as well.

I will continue to check out their work and can't wait to see how their next book reads.

Sometimes, a miserable story can be a worthwhile slog. I want this to be one of those but...

At the beginning, Ivy promises she's a liar who's going to tell the truth. This, in combination with her subtle ability to see magic could have made for some very interesting situations. Unfortunately, the only outcome of it is that Ivy gets herself into a very gross dating situation by “pretending” she went to magic school with her twin.

Speaking of her twin, what a waste. Why be twins, something really cool and uncommon, but it doesn't matter in any way?

60% of the story is miserable misery pointlessly PIing, followed by a quick explosion of WHOA THAT'S COOL, and rounded out by a conclusion of more maudlin mope-ery.

There's a lot I love about this book. But there are a zillion little things that disappointed me.

Would cautiously recommend to some friends.

This was ok. Murder mystery is not my preferred genre, but the mashup of magic style school and crime drama sounded interesting. Unfortunately I found the main character kind of unlikable from the beginning, for example her unrelenting jealousy of her sister was off putting. Though to be fair she does experience a lot of growth over the story.

Every! Single! “"”Mystery!””” Was So! Fucking! Obvious! JFC!
And I'm not even someone who reads mysteries all the time.

This would have been so much better (ok maybe still not great, but like, not so annoying and dull) if it had been rewritten without the insufferable, oblivious MC, and instead been from the POV of her sister or one of the students of the school.

This book was awesome and I'm going to try and not compare it to other things. It's going to be hard though. It's a little bit Veronica Mars, a little bit Hex (remember that show? (Mmmmmm weeping Michael Fassbender). It's a little bit the Magicians.
See, I did a terrible job.
I loved Gaily's voice in the American Hippo series, and that has not changed at all. She writes lines that describe things in such a way that I have to be careful taking a sip of coffee, as it may fly right out my nose from laughing too hard. I thought Ivy was just the perfect blend of awesome and messed up and cheered her journey.
It's a great book with a beautiful cover (and endpapers!) but I would have read it even if it had been the ugliest book produced this year. I mixed this up by reading a physical copy and listening to it on audio and Xe Sands voice was PERFECT!!!

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
—

But this? A real murder case? This was the kind of thing that private detectives didn't do anymore. It was what had made me get my PI license in the first place―the possibility that I might get to do something big and real, something nobody else could do. I didn't know the first thing about solving a murder, but this was my chance to find out if I could really do it. If I could be a real detective, instead of a halfway-there failure. If this part of my life could be different from all the other parts, all the parts where I was only ever almost enough.

I won't try to pinpoint the first lie I told myself over the course of this case. That's not a useful thread to pull on. The point is, I really thought I was going to do things right this time. I wasn't going to fuck it up and lose everything. That's what I told myself as I stared at the old picture of me and Tabitha.

This time was going to be different. This time was going to be better. This time, I was going to be enough.

When a gruesome murder is discovered at The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches Theoretical Magic, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister―without losing herself.

Potter

The Magicians

Here's the truth about most detective work: it's boring, grueling, and monotonous. It involves a lot of being in the right place at the wrong time. But if you spend enough hours being in the right place, eventually, it'll be the right time. You have to be able to recognize it.

The other active cases were small potatoes-two disability claims, three cheating spouses, one spouse who wasn't cheating after all but whose husband couldn't believe that she had really taken up pottery. She was pretty good at it too.

I've always had a good memory for names. Someone once told me at a conference that's all it really takes to be a private detective: a good memory for names and faces, an eyeball for details, and. a halfway decent invoicing system.

and

Magic for Liars

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for that, Bookish First!

This book was not at all what I had built up in my head. The back of the books says MURDER, MYSTERY, MADNESS, MAGIC. So in my head I had this wild ride of a book. And it really wasn't and I'm not mad at that at all, shockingly enough.

Ivy Gamble is a PI and she gets hired by a school to solve a murder. The problem is that she's never solved a murder (Her job is more cheating spouses and insurance scams). It's a high school for young mages. And it's where her estranged twin sister teaches.

What caught me off guard was how much in Ivy's head I would be. She lives in her head a lot and I can really relate to that. Her sister is magic and she is not and that, along with some family trauma, ripped them apart at a young age and they never really mended the rift. She sees herself as less than..almost all the time. When in reality she's not bad at her job.

Since Ivy and her sister Tabitha grew apart in their teens (with Tabitha going away to a magic high school), Ivy wanted to know nothing about magic. So she had no idea what to expect when she arrived at the school. And it wasn't at all what she expected and at times it seemed to make her angry. While there she also built up this double vision...The Now Ivy and the Could Have Been Ivy. The If I Had Magic Too Ivy. This Ivy Is Worth It Ivy. She really did sell herself short.

The author also did a great job with the rest of the characters. Ivy is the center of the story but that doesn't mean the other characters were lacking. Not at all.

This was a great debut. I am definitely going to keep a lookout for this author.