Sweet & Bitter Magic

Overall, this was a cute little read.

The story itself was very fairytale-esque, a bit dreamlike in places. The curse in particular has very sort of Disney effects on the world: giant mushrooms, whispering trees, and things like that. Even if most of the time it was portrayed as a bad thing I still liked it as part of the atmosphere. Wren and Tamsin were cute; I would've preferred a bit more development when it comes to the relationship between them but I can't think of any specific problems I have with their relationship.

I did have a few criticisms which ended up being why I couldn't rate this book higher than 3 stars.

First, this book is VERY YA. More YA than most YA books I've read. I understand this book is about teenagers but they made a LOT of stupid mistakes that they should SPECIFICALLY know better than to make because of the things they went through in their respective pasts. Tamsin: why would you bother to keep your past with Marlena and the Coven a secret when you KNOW the second you step foot Within that's all anyone's going to be talking about? Did you seriously think you could somehow keep her from knowing that you were banished when you yourself were afraid of the reception you'd get? In the same vein, why did Wren think she'd be able to go to the WITCHLANDS and keep herself being a source a secret? She is so shocked when they figure her out within seconds and force her to stay when this is what she's been running from her whole life! Obviously it's going to happen when she goes to the WITCH. LANDS.

The magic system is vast but its also not explained very well at all. We don't know the limitations (besides the direct cost of using magic) or if there are specialties, different systems, what exactly constitutes a spell, why some spells require chanting things and why others can be done just by snapping your fingers, so on and so forth. It's a small gripe in the grand scheme of things but something I would've appreciated having more details on.

In a similar respect, Tamsin makes it a point to say that she only keeps all those crystals and tools and such around to make regular folk feel better because REAL witches don't need tools to do magic. Except when they're staying in an inn in the Witchlands, there's a scene where she describes a bunch of witches using tools for magic. Using herbs and crystals and tarot cards and a bunch of other stuff to track the dark witch. So what is the truth?

It also slightly bugged me that everyone in the Witchlands, including Marlena, seems so shocked and appalled that Tamsin used dark magic to uhhh literally save her sister's life? Like yes of course dark magic is bad but there is not a SMIDGE of empathy AT ALL within ANYONE over the fact that a twelve-year-old girl just...didn't want her sister to die? Like they treated Tamsin like she was some evil monster when the circumstances behind her reasoning should be taken into account at least a little bit. I don't know if that was a point that the author was trying to make about how Witch society works and that should be a critique of it but it's never really expounded upon so I'm going to go with no.

My biggest gripe with this book is this: Tamsin's curse either doesn't make sense or it's executed very poorly. In the beginning of the book it's established that she's cursed to never feel love. But then it's extended to say that she never feels anything good at all. Specifically she looks at a sunset and can't find any enjoyment in it, or she can't enjoy spices on food or see bright colors. Those things don't have much to do with love, yet they're affected by the curse. The book then goes on to be written as if Tamsin is this stoic unfeeling robot who can't feel anything at all, when 1. that's not what the curse is and 2. that's proven wrong because she feels all sorts of things. THEN the book is written like she can't feel any POSITIVE emotions, when she still does that as well. She stills gets amused, she still gets nostalgic, and for the most part it seems like she keeps HERSELF from feeling positive things instead of the curse doing it. If the author wrote this curse how it;s actually laid out, then Tamsin not being able to feel love wouldn't have nearly as negative an effect on her life as it seems to. Love is just one positive emotion. She would still be able to find pleasure and enjoyment in things, she would still be able to like sunsets and certain tastes and be fond of things and people. She just wouldn't be able to feel that one specific positive emotion, so pretty much she would never be able to fall in love with someone or feel anything stronger than fondness for people. It would still be sad, but not nearly as dire as this story makes it out to be. It feels like the author set the parameters for this curse and then started changing it willy-nilly to fit whatever they felt would make the story more interesting, no matter if it made sense to the meaning of the curse itself.

Despite all my gripes though, this wasn't a bad book. I still enjoyed myself enough to finish reading it. I just expected more from it.