Reviews

Magic or Die by J.P. Jackson

mattdoylemedia's review against another edition

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4.0

I wanted to start here by saying that the author, J.P. Jackson, has an excellent eye for detail when it comes to worldbuilding. That’s something that really shines, especially in terms of the magic system. That’s really important too because magic without a set of rules in place doesn’t really work in books aimed at older readers, at least in my opinion. Here, he’s set up several classes of ability that work well alongside each other. Sure, the different styles are fairly common fantasy elements – even the super interesting concept of sanguimancy has been used before – but there’s a definite original edge to it. It honestly feels like J.P. went to great lengths to ensure that the way the different classes work and interact with their user and the environment feels natural. Even the descriptions of how magic feels to use works wonderfully. That really helps the story overall because the use of magic is so intertwined with the different elements of the tale.

In terms of characters, they’re an interesting bunch to get to grips with. Our key protagonist, James, is very curmudgeonly in nature when we meet him. I enjoyed that, and it helped provide a contrast with his more caring side ss he worked with the students to help them control their powers. Having been addicted to alcohol and cigarettes since a tragic event in his backstory has left him low too. What I found interesting with it is that he describes himself with phrases like ‘my middle had a jiggle’, which gives a clear indication that he views himself as at the very least being more out of shape than he used to be. At the same time though, his love interest Isaiah describes him as having a bodybuilder physique. This felt like a case of internal perception vs. external perception. I enjoyed that because, let’s be honest, many of us will have been in the same position at some point. I know I have, at least. I was happy to see a hero that wasn’t in the best shape of their life too, as it made James feel more like a relatable, normal teacher, even in spite of the setting. Throw in that he openly hurts and it gives you plenty to get behind in terms of wanting him to better his position.

While all the magical abilities were portrayed well, it was the demonic ones that felt the best to me. If you’ve read J.P.’s debut novel Daimonion, that won’t be a surprise, as the author has a clear fondness for this side of the arcane. If anything though, I’d say that it’s perhaps a little tighter in Magic or Die. From a Yuki-onna – who doesn’t love the classic snow yokai? – to some wonderful imagery involving a demon tail when Isiah is let out, it’s all very striking. It also opened up a chance for an excellent side character named Tonka to give a very well written talk about coexistence with demons.

Ghosts get a look-in too, with some interesting concepts about how they work. For example, the way they get twisted if they died hanging on to anger added a little depth to James’ deceased ex-partner Cody, which in turn also added to James’ arc. The attempt to exorcise Cody was a real stand-out scene too. His slow decay throughout was also really well done and reminded me of American Werewolf In London. There’s also a very Exorcist moment where veins spell out the word ‘help me’ in one of the characters. That made me smile. Oh, and Annabelle’s ‘I see you’ is always gloriously creepy.

In terms of the general story, the heroes are given a lot of obstacles to overcome. From James’ initial state and feelings about the situation to the ever-shrinking boundary of how long they have to learn control, there’s plenty to cheer them on through. It all builds up to an action-packed final conflict and a finale that ends the arc and sets up the next. That the students are all technically adults is also good to see. After all, adults learn too, and that’s something I haven’t seen portrayed too often.

If anything, the romance may be the biggest stumbling block for some readers. Despite the characters all being adults, there is still a sense of boundaries between students and teachers. In fact, James brings this up himself multiple times. He knows that there’s a sense of any potential romance between himself and Isaiah being wrong, at least until they’re no long student and teacher, and he makes that clear. But, he goes for it anyway. From a personal standpoint, all the characters being adult helped here. It also isn’t written in a way that feels wrong if that makes sense. I’m sure that some readers like the trope anyway – it’s certainly a popular one – but if this sort of relationship shift is an issue for you, be aware that it’s there, but go in with an open mind, because they do feel like they’ll be good for each other. The relationship feels a little insta-love too, which also seems to be a story element that people either love or hate. I felt that the demonic interaction involved perhaps hastened things in this case, which fits within the story universe. While quickly forming relationships are not my preference, I felt that it was fine here.

So, where does that all leave Magic or Die? Well, I’d say that it’s an enjoyable Dark Urban Fantasy with horror elements. The romantic side of the story may or may not be to everyone’s taste, but even if it goes against your preferences, the book still has a lot more to offer. The magical elements are superb, and the characters are a sympathetic bunch. So, I give it a solid 4 out of 5.

glennquigley's review against another edition

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5.0

Loved it! Very imaginative story with shades of X-Men that built to a very exciting climax. I'm looking forward to reading the next one!

the_fenharel's review against another edition

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3.0

** I got this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review **

I really enjoyed reading this books for many different reasons. I loved that the protagonist was flawed and sometimes unlikeable. I liked that the powers these people have weren't something to be desired and made me grateful I had nothing to do with them.

The novel revolves around James, a man with a few special powers. He has a contract with the CMRD and has to fulfill it - teaching students to control their powers all while being haunted by a ghost of one of his past students. It's a struggle to work with so many strong personalities in one room, but if he doesn't sort them out, they will be executed.

I loved the ideas of the Arcanes - people being possessed by some sort of spirit. Poor Annabelle! I'm hoping that in the future we get to see more indecision from her. She came from a religious background so this would have to bother her more than what is shown! She obviously couldn't worry about it too much in this book because it was a survival instinct that took over, but due to the ending, she doesn't have to support it anymore. I'm hoping to see great inner conflict from her!

I loved Chris as well! He has such a great backstory and I'm so curious about the mystery around him being taken in. Was it the CMRD? Or something else? Is his brother dead? I'm so ready to find out!

However, it had some inconsistencies that bothered me. Our protagonist, James, is scouted to teach these children because he's apparently powerful and unique. However, we see time and time again that he's not that powerful and not really that unique either. He has the power to control other people, but only if they are willing or don't know about his power. And he can also make shields that everyone else seemed to be able to as well. He couldn't hold onto either power for very long so how is he meant to be that powerful compared to everyone else who can do really amazing stuff. Like the guy who can turn back time? That's awesome!

Isaiah is a strange romantic option. First, he's described as resigned and not so happy, and we meet his demon first which is awesome! I was hoping Isaiah would be different, but instead he's practically the same character. So how is someone that holds himself in such a resigned manner be so outgoing? It just seems like the author set out to write one character and then got bored and changed him halfway.

Back to the powers - the whole reason James is there is to teach them. But... he doesn't. He's so "smart" at the start, but then claims to actually know nothing. He basically hands them books and they teach themselves. So why couldn't they have books earlier? Why did James have to teach them himself? And for people so "out of control" they learnt to control themselves within a few pages and be perfectly fine and managing powers they didn't even know they had.

To be fair, the ending was amazing and I really want to read the sequel. I feel like this series will get better and better and I'm excited for that!

emhamill's review against another edition

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5.0

I had so much fun with J.P. Jackson's first book, Daimonion, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book.
Jackson delivers another horribly good time with Magic or Die. I felt guilty watching all the terrible things James Martin and his students were going through and enjoying every second of it!
James is blackmailed/recruited by CMRD, with whom he has a traumatic past, to teach a group of exceptional and dangerously gifted magic users how to control their powers. He quickly discovers that not only are the lives of the students in danger, but his as well, and the dark intentions of the CMRD go far beyond their deepest fears.
This is more along the lines of The Magicians rather than Harry Potter- the students are all in their early to mid twenties, and a good thing, since James has a reciprocated fascination with Isaiah, one of the people he is teaching. It gives him a more personal reason to try to get all of them out alive. Every one of the characters has a distinct personality (Ning is my favorite) and they are a blast to read about.
Jackson has definitely grown in his craft. This story flows much more seamlessly and the pacing is excellent. It's a quick, fun read with dark magic, a bitchy villain, and some characters that you can't quite decide whether they are friends or enemies. Pick this one up, and you won't regret it.

cadiva's review against another edition

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4.0

Full review to come.

This was a new author to me and I was extremely impressed with the level of world building and detailing which went into this quite unusual paranormal.

There is an element of a romance, but it's not the driving force of the story, it's more about friendship and beating the odds and fighting for the right to live your own life. Someone else's review has mentioned it has an X-Men vibe to it and I think that's true to an extent.

But it's not so much about the power these young adults have as it is about how they learn to not only control their abilities but how to open up and make friendships and work as a team towards a single goal - escaping from the centre they're being kept in.

James isn't a "hero" as such, he's a deeply flawed character, prone to making mistakes, but fundamentally honest and with good intentions. The romance here is tied into the wider narrative, it's fade to black and pretty much all of it happens off page. This usually irritates me immensely - I like to see the emotional connections two people make when they become sexually active - but it actually fits into the story.

The characters are wonderfully sketched out, each has a unique voice which brings them to life and I found myself rooting for them all against the captivity and also breaking my heart at the traumas they go through.

There's also a damn cliffhanger at the end which, as anyone who follows my reviews knows, drives me insane and will lose a star off any rating because I firmly believe every book, irrespective of if it's part of a series or not, should wrap the majority of its story with the pages UNLESS the reader is forewarned that it won't conclude all plot elements.

So this could have been a 5* read and I will definitely read the next book to find out what happens to this little gang of misfits.

#ARC kindly provided by the author in return for an honest and unbiased review

cpeel's review

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4.0

I finished this book yesterday. Think Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters but for adults (including sexy gay characters) with magical & arcane abilities. Except instead of being run by benevolent Professor-X it's run by an evil bitch who wants the students trained into magic or be killed. In particular I enjoyed how arcane powers were portrayed and used vs what is conventionally considered magic.

I think the book should have been ~50% longer with more lead up to some of the relationships and plot points. None of the story transitions felt rushed but a bit more connective tissue in-between would have helped make the story feel more tangible and real.

bookshelfsos's review

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2.0

There are probably people out there who would love this book, but unfortunately it wasn’t quite right for me.

The only expectations I went in to Magic or Die with came from the summary that I read here on Goodreads, and it really made it sound like it sound like the kind of story I would be into: characters with traumatic pasts and emotional depth, high stakes involving the commodification and trafficking of magically gifted people, and a queer romance subplot. All things that I love and look for in my stories. However, Magic or Die didn’t really deliver on much of that. The seriousness and the drama of the situation were watered down by weak world-building, hackneyed villains (at one point there was a non-ironic use of the word henchmen), and a very awkward romance between the main character and one of his students.

Maybe I should start by saying what’s good about the book. I think conceptually it’s a cool idea. Even though they’re not perfectly explained, the three magic systems in the story are interesting and creative. I like the idea that some people have inborn magical talent and some get it through demon possession. And I will admit that some of the trope-y aspects of the book were fun: the Suicide Squad-style character introduction scene, the misfits coming together as a team, the found family, and the unique and strong personalities of each of the students. The writing itself was strong for the most part, and I found the first half of the book to really fly by as I waited with anticipation for the action to kick in. Although I ultimately didn't love where the plot went, I can still commend the author for a very clear and readable prose style.

If a younger version of me had been reading this I probably would have been less critical and more willing to give the benefit of the doubt when it came to the issues with world-building. But as it was, I found myself confused by and skeptical of the situation that we’re presented with: our main character James is brought back to the CMRD, the very institution where he was trained and taught for several years, and yet he narrates all of this as if he’s experiencing it for the first time. Despite our direct line into his thoughts via first-person narration, James appears to have almost no actual memories of anyone or anything at CMRD. He tells us he was there, but then never thinks to himself, “Oh, I remember that time I hung out with my friends in this courtyard” or “I remember my own weird, plexiglass-walled cell” or anything like that.

Which brings me to another strange bit of world-building: all the students in the story are being held captive in cells, which initially sounds cruel and scary, but then we keep hearing about all the stuff that they have in their cells: beds with comforters, fluffy pillows, stereos, televisions, teddy bears. Every emotional punch in the story seemed to follow the same pattern: set up something that sounds dramatic and compelling, but then pull it back and the last minute and smooth it over so that it isn’t so bad after all. The biggest culprit of this was with James’s backstory. The backstory of a man watching his student and lover euthanized before his eyes was the probably the most stirring aspect of this entire story, but James hardly seems to care about Cody aside from his own guilt over what happened. Do we get any memories of what their relationship was like before Cody died? No; Cody's character is reduced entirely to emotional baggage for James to lug around. So we’re just left with what *could* have been an amazing backstory, but it’s entirely weakened by James’s apathy and our own ignorance as readers without context.

You'll notice I'm calling the characters students, even though they are actually more like captives, because that is honestly how they are treated and referred to throughout the book. The CMRD is holding them hostage against their wills and under threat of death, but that is hardly ever dwelt upon or questioned. Also, James constantly refers to the students as kids within the narration, but is always reminding them and the authority figures at the CMRD that they are adults. It almost seemed like the author was trying to remind himself that he had aged them up, while simultaneously having them act like immature teenagers. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, but the whole student vs prisoner and kids vs adults situation seemed very weird and muddled to me.

I hate to go too hard on Magic or Die, because I know there are people out there who enjoy more light-hearted, fun stories about plucky groups of friends coming together to defeat an ambiguously evil organization. That’s just not what I like to read. I wanted the author to lean further into the dark stuff, the uncomfortable moral dilemmas, and the tragedy. He didn’t do that, and it left me personally disappointed.

NB: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

cadiva's review

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4.0

Full review to come.

This was a new author to me and I was extremely impressed with the level of world building and detailing which went into this quite unusual paranormal.

There is an element of a romance, but it's not the driving force of the story, it's more about friendship and beating the odds and fighting for the right to live your own life. Someone else's review has mentioned it has an X-Men vibe to it and I think that's true to an extent.

But it's not so much about the power these young adults have as it is about how they learn to not only control their abilities but how to open up and make friendships and work as a team towards a single goal - escaping from the centre they're being kept in.

James isn't a "hero" as such, he's a deeply flawed character, prone to making mistakes, but fundamentally honest and with good intentions. The romance here is tied into the wider narrative, it's fade to black and pretty much all of it happens off page. This usually irritates me immensely - I like to see the emotional connections two people make when they become sexually active - but it actually fits into the story.

The characters are wonderfully sketched out, each has a unique voice which brings them to life and I found myself rooting for them all against the captivity and also breaking my heart at the traumas they go through.

There's also a damn cliffhanger at the end which, as anyone who follows my reviews knows, drives me insane and will lose a star off any rating because I firmly believe every book, irrespective of if it's part of a series or not, should wrap the majority of its story with the pages UNLESS the reader is forewarned that it won't conclude all plot elements.

So this could have been a 5* read and I will definitely read the next book to find out what happens to this little gang of misfits.

#ARC kindly provided by the author in return for an honest and unbiased review

jpjackson's review

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2018-19 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention in Gay Alternate Reality

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M/M Romance 2018 Member's Choice Awards Nominee for Best Paranormal

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I'm not going to rate my own book - that'd be silly! But I will say this...I had such a good time writing this story. I think I'm slightly more in love with this book than my first. I know, we shouldn't choose which of our children are our favorites, and yet...

Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy the adventure of James, Isaiah, Ning, Chris, Annabelle, and Camila.

booksthatburn's review against another edition

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fast-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

Running out of time, Magic or Die is fun and terrifying in turns. With strong characterization and an instantly hateable bureaucratic villain, this fantasy is no one's daydream, and the demons may fill your nightmares.

I loved reading this, I read it in one sitting and enjoyed every minute of it. Sometimes I was just laughing while reading, I had such a good time. It's also very dark and deals with a lot of stressful topics (refer to the CWs below), but handles them in a way that has so much care for the reader that it was cathartic rather than stressful. The way it handled the characters was superb, really understanding what they'd be going through emotionally in this awful situation, and that made it feel good to read too, even when it was dark. The MC has this grittiness that reminds me of the best bits of a film-noir setting without actually being in that genre, especially at the start. He's stressed and trying to hold it together for the people under his care even when he doesn't actually know a whole lot more than they do, and that was such a relatable feeling.

The balance between focusing on each secondary character and keeping the plot moving was handled well, the more introductory portion of the book was staggered in a way that felt natural and made it easier to track these very different people. I'm someone who usually has trouble tracking a lot of character names at once and I didn't have problem here, at least partly because of the pace at which they were established. The magic system could have felt like a giant infodump, and instead I find myself at the end of book one, feeling like I could actually explain this system to someone. I could at least describe the different types of magic and how the users might be affected. 

There is a student/teacher romance, but everyone involved is fully an adult and nothing about this setting was a typical academic environment. This portrayal definitely fits under "power differentials are sexy"; it's not exploitative within the story (and the potential for it to be exploitative or inappropriate is discussed by the parties involved). 

The villain was fantastically hateable. Early on I was unsure and I thought the MC just didn't like her because she's an abrasive person, but by halfway through I completely got it and unreservedly hated her too. She has a great balance between having an understandable motivation for being evil and being so thoroughly terrible that understanding her didn't make me hate her any less. 

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