Spells for Forgetting

Adrienne Young's writing is very atmospheric and beautiful but it felt wasted on these characters and story.

In my opinion, we spend way too much of the story on repetitive things:

- Emiry and Dutch having the same argument over and over again
- August pining over Emery and feeling guilty about The Event
- Emery acting like a silly 18-year-old instead of a 33 yo woman she is supposed to be
- Storms brewing
- Birds being where they are not supposed to be
- Older characters being stoic and mysterious

And the magic you ask? Well, there was always a promise of magic but it never really came to fruition. Until it did. In one single event that took about one page. AND THEN WE NEVER TALKED ABOUT IT AGAIN.

I still can't decide what genre this book tried to be. Was it a murder mystery? Tragic love story? Generational tale of love and hate? Magical realism? Fantasy? Idk, but it delivered on none of them.

It would have been a generous 3 star maybe but the reveal of Lily's murder got me so mad that I had to bump it down to two stars. Despite everything Lily supposedly was, she deserved a resolution to her murder.