Reviews

This sweet, whimsical collection was a lot of fun to read. I loved the attention to detail Krevat put into the characters and the world she built; the details really bring it to life. The relationship between the sisters Gertie and Bridget is sweet and funny. This is a great book to read on a rainy day with a cup of tea and a blanket!

blewballoon's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

The short stories are very wholesome and cozy. This would be fine for quite young audiences, but I enjoyed it as an adult. I will probably read the rest of the series. It was a nice palate cleanser during spooky season between actual horror books.

ronjaslibrary's review

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adventurous funny inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

abigail_reading's review against another edition

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lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

This book is fantastic for kids. It wasn’t kidding about the mundane. And yet this book is utterly sweet and charming. It’s a collection of everyday events that happen in a world where magic is a normal part of life. There isn’t any large conflict but it’s just a lovely easy read.

libraryofindie's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

rjbedell's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious relaxing fast-paced

4.5

A wonderful collection of stories that you can curl up with as you would a mug of tea, or a favorite blanket. Just as promised, the characters' adventures don't shock or scare or startle but rather will charm young readers with comfort, familiarity that grows over time, and clever doses of whimsy. I find myself thinking regularly about Half-Moon Ice Cream, open only twice a month and run by a seer who knows your order better than you do. ToMM provides a more compassionate and inclusive approach to a teenage magic world, and the presence of smartphones, web searches to find incantations, and television makes it feel that much more relatable.

The stories get more confident over the course of the book. They would perhaps benefit from doubling down on the fact that they should be read as a collection, rather than standalones: as the same bits of exposition get repeated in each story (Bridget's eye, Gertie's hat, Ziggy's existence, for instance), momentum is sacrificed that could otherwise be used to introduce new worldbuilding elements. But the pace will be comfortable for casual and young readers, and this makes the book easy to put down and come back to later without missing much.

booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny lighthearted fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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

Tales of Mundane Magic: Volume One is a magical slice-of-life story of two sisters in boarding school. It artfully balances fun with a sense of grounded-ness, building a world where magic is as ordinary and fun as playing catch with your ghost dog.

My main emotion after finishing this book is fun, it's not shallow but it's generally very happy and confident, which was nice after reviewing some darker things recently.

The book is told as a series of vignettes in the lives of two teenage girls in a quasi-modern world where some people have magic. There are definite connecting threads between the stories, both thematically and in terms of recurring characters. There isn't some grand overarching problem to solve, just a series of magically-involved incidents in their lives. Some elements of earlier stories provide the solutions to later problems because they have implied continuity of existence behind even though we only get small slices of their lives. It has a light and fun feeling despite taking us to a funeral in chapter two and implying some pretty dark realities later on in the book. It's generally breezy and whimsical, to the two girls every problem has an easily discernible solution but the magical nature of them made it feel novel and fresh to me as a reader.

Part of why I like this book is they and their friends are fully teens, with a confidence borne of not knowing how easily everything can turn out badly, and enough prowess and understanding to make some very interesting things happen.

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