Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

68 reviews

abbiechron's review

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Holy crap this novel was a rollercoaster! The narrator (XE Sands) is an incredible performer and did amazing at adding to the mystery and drama that Sarah Gailey penned.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Murder, Medical trauma, and Abortion

Moderate: Death of parent, Gore, Blood, Alcohol, Body horror, Cancer, Terminal illness, and Sexual content

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Body shaming, Vomit, Bullying, and Stalking

sammycakes95's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

There’s some holes in the plot towards the end the book moves Very quickly the ending leaves you asking a lot of questions.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Abortion, Cancer, and Murder

forg3y's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

way better than I had thought it'd be, interesting and cool ending too. A few too many lip bites at that 2/3rds mark.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Abortion, Medical trauma, Body horror, Terminal illness, and Cancer

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Vomit and Blood

It handles the panic attack parts well, with some good ways to cope (and one, impossible-but-wouldn't-it-be-nice way)

kiwi_00's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Sarah Gailey cooked. There is such a good balance of romance, mystery solving and magic related issues that keeps the plot moving so it doesn't get boring. The characters that Ivy interacts with are such interesting representations of tropes around school settings such as

the popular and unpopular sibling duo, teen pregnancy, the creepy male high school teacher, the older female teacher who's seen it all

, it's so interesting how Ivy manages discussions during the investigation to push or pull an individual to say the right amount of information. Even though there are a lot of moving parts, Gailey does a really good job of keeping everything neatly tied together.

• Romance aspect of the story-
  I enjoyed the flirtations and dates of Rahul and Ivy and I wish that they had one final discussion about how she messed up and a possibility of fixing it (I wanted them to end up together), it was a shame that her inferiority complex towards her sister got in the way
  .
• Mystery- Brilliantly done especially because the investigation is not some Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot investigation where only they could have solved it. Since everything is so realistic and Gailey takes care to make sure that the details in the story align well enough that when particular details stuck out to me, I was trying to solve the mystery alongside Ivy even though I ended up being way off. Once the perpetrator is revealed and gives an explanation, it makes so much sense why
  Tabitha did what she did but I was surprised that Ivy didn't say anything. Tabitha losing two people that she loves to cancer broke her mind and she was willing to do anything to save Sylvia even though she ended up killing her. Harbouring the feeling  (and then finding out that Ivy blamed her) that she was somewhat responsible for her mother's death and then conjuring a plan to remove all the cancer from Sylvia? Despite being the perpetrator, you can't help but feel sympathetic
• Magic- I liked how realistic it was, it felt so different to other stories about magic on a school campus.
  It was more akin to science and even then just physics theory. I liked how in the background magic stuff was in comparison to the rest of the story especially the part about a prophecy and a 'Chosen One'
  . I think not
  being able to do magic
  is such an integral part of Ivy's inferiority complex towards her sister which helps to make Ivy feel more human than a perfect detective who solves every single case with no issues.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, Death, Abortion, Medical content, Cancer, and Blood

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

bodybeingsoulstl's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

2nd Sarah Gailey novel and gave much the same vibe of mystery + horror with a touch of magic.

You might like this book if you...
... dreamed of being at Hogwarts
... like being a detective / sleuth
... have a strainted relationship with your sister

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Murder, and Abortion

Moderate: Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Grief

defunctfridge's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

incredibly written and highly addictive. my biggest belief on mysteries and plot twist is: if your audience cant go back and find the clues you wrote a bad twist. and this book is littered with bread crumbs that you can put together with ivy. if you pay attention you can solve it, which is such a good feeling as a reader to put the pieces together be wrong and rearrange them. the characters are also so well written with such care and depth.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Murder, Body horror, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Gore, Death, Cancer, Abortion, and Blood

Minor: Self harm and Eating disorder

em_cer's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

I did NOT want to stop listening. Will defiantly read more from this author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Abortion

Moderate: Cancer and Death of parent

xosirenox's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Body horror, Abortion, Murder, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Cancer, Death, Alcohol, Gore, Blood, and Grief

scripturient's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Murder, Abortion, Alcoholism, and Body horror

Moderate: Death of parent and Terminal illness

tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Soooo many mixed feelings about this one. I really like magical mysteries. This one clips along at a fairly good pace, and having the investigator be an outsider is a nice take on the genre. 

But I felt so frustrated by the MC (static and underdeveloped), the interview scenes (tortuous), and the ending

Ivy says that turning the killer in won’t be justice, but it also lets them dodge all accountability, and this killer REALLY needs to be held accountable.

I felt very unsatisfied when I reached the end.

I don’t know if Gailey intends to return to Ivy’s world, but I don’t think I’d follow if they do.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Body horror, Gore, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent, Abortion, Vomit, Cancer, Alcoholism, Terminal illness, Alcohol, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Eating disorder, and Infidelity