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Dear Readers, Aliens and Creatures, today I have an acid free review for you on ‘An Unkindness of Magicians’! Yay! Although there IS some pettiness. 🤣😅 I am also sharing some of my observations and some questions I had after reading the book. Enjoy!
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Official title: An Unkindness of Magicians
My title: (this title is too bad-ass to change) 🤣
Author: Kat Howard @katwithsword
Fav character: House Prospero 😍 – I loved the idea of sentient houses
Will I read more works by the author: YES!
Type: Book – An Unkindness of Magicians Series – Book 1/2
4.9/5
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Incredibly smooth writing that had me eating up the book in one sitting. A book that made me want a helpful house and a tattoo saying “unmade” 🖤🖤🖤. Because how sexy is the word ‘unmade’?! You will be ‘unmade’. Love it.
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BLURB
Romeo and Juliet-ESQUE intrigue, but present-day and with magic, intricate finger work, cannibalism, infanticide, sacrifices, blood, intricate descriptions of creative deaths and oh so much Power – you can taste it through the book.
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SUMMARY
Sydney has been hired to represent a House in-the-making (think family houses) at the upcoming Turning death tournament held by the magicians in the Unseen World we are all missing out on. Her magic is powerful, her origins are unknown and she is here with several hidden agendas. Will her secrets stay hidden from the House of Shadows, will people continue to foolishly test her even after seeing her powers, will the asshole killer be killed to our satisfaction? Who will win the tournament and which Houses will be unmade?
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TOP 3 THINGS I LOVED 🖤
- Sentient houses that could be a book on their own. How do they become sentient, what is necessary to make it happen, who were the first sentient houses, what happens to their hearts when they become ‘unmade’?
- The fight scenes were pretty awesome. How the magic was described as happening was incredibly clear. I had images running through my mind during all of the fighting scenes. It was very well done.
- I enjoyed the parallel stories. Especially the murder bit that went on. It created a good balance and gave us a sense of how the wheels of fortune are forced to turn, how little bits make a whole.
TOP 3 THINGS I did not like 😩
- Strangely enough, it felt a bit rushed. I am not exactly complaining about the amount of pages, but I felt that more of a punch could have been packed into this first book. There is a lot which is mentioned which creates curiosity.
- I wish if we had seen more of NY reflected in the houses, in the make-up of the houses. If not African-Americans or Indo-Americans and such, then Caribbean, Polynesian, East Asian, etc, business immigrants. Couldn’t they have bought into these houses? What is the dynamic there?
- Meh, couldn’t find anything else. That was pretty much it.
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OBSERVATIONS:
Two (2) topics brought up by the book that I will discuss in another post, but that I will introduce here. These aren’t ONLY related to this book, as you will see, but are featured here, and so I would like to discuss them:
As someone born and raised in Latin America and The Caribbean, I am surrounded by myths and stories that feature dark-skinned and light skinned people. I am aware of some of the myths brought over by different groups and many of these have weaved themselves into the fabric of my region.
I have noticed however that many Western/Northern authors snd writers seem to have difficulties conceiving worlds where power balances are equally shared or that feature more inclusivity. So I asked myself two questions:
- Why are dark skinned people (shades of brown) hardly featured in books about magic and hidden in plain sight, magical worlds? I can understand if it takes place in a place with NO dark skinned people at all – but in NYC? There are none capable of holding lofty positions dark-skinned people? Strange
- Why are dark skinned people are constantly sacrificing themselves, or being a heavy support for PALE (as these books always like to describe them) people? Why is it never the other way around?
Have you read this book? What did you think?
