Scan barcode
A review by skywhales
Unnatural Magic by C.M. Waggoner
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
good lord i need to reread the sequel to this immediately this had so much of my favorite shit in it!!! awesome worldbuilding and magic systems, a romantic relationship i genuinely enjoy, gender fuckery, HURGH. this would've been perfect if it wasn't for like three things.
first off tsira and jeckran OHHHH i loved them both SO much. dare i say it. reigboss and malewife. their banter with each other and other people and their relationship...while tsira is not technically a woman this is still everything i wanted in a m/f romance and more. they're so protective of each other and so silly and cute i just adore them.i will say that the pregnancy shit felt unnecessary to me. like we have a character as cool and groundbreaking and gender complicated as tsira and somehow she's STILL reduced to angst about being able to have a kid. (also...tmi perhaps but every time they had sex it was Her fucking Him so like...when did they do the baby making sex lol.) maybe i just am a little squicked by pregnancy. i wouldn't even have really minded that much if they ended up adopting a kid or something it just felt weird and annoying to me.
onna was sadly a little disappointing. from the synopsis she seemed like the kind of character made for me. i love you genius girls forever!!! i wish more time had been put into her learning to not apologize for being smart and not have to put themselves down for men all the time because as much as i love girls who stick out and don't fit in and are unquestionably talented it makes me so sad when they cover up those talents and apologize for everything and let themselves get condescended to by men. i thought this was going to be a thing that she'd get character development for but it didn't feel fully fleshed out. also she was SO boy crazy it was a fucking slog. every time some new man entered the picture it's all about how handsome he is and his nice hair and whatever the fuck else. it was deeply deeply boring to read and i had to skim it. i kept forgetting who the fuck haran even was because whenever he entered the picture onna's internal monologue got so insufferable. she was a very likable character whenever she wasn't trying to impress some dude i wish we got more of that.
loga was also kind of a miss for me. he had a lot of things i could like in a character but i HATED how he talked to onna. it felt so condescending a lot of the time and sometimes even kind of flirtatious?? which was fucking gross. it got so bad that at one point i wondered if the twist at the end of the book would be he was taking advantage of her the whole time but no i guess that's just what their relationship is like. rubbed me the wrong way.i also didn't like the implication that he and jeckran had a thing going on near the end. not because i think tsira/jeckran have to be monogamously in love obviously but i just really can't stand the "one person gets off on being a nuisance to the other one and the other one just grumbles and gets flustered about it" ship trope. it annoys me every single fucking time. it felt like they were introduced to each other way too late in the story to have any sort of meaningful rapport.
i think we also could have done with more women in the supporting cast. but that's neither here nor there.
the worldbuilding and the magic system and all that were completely top tier. exactly what i like to see in my fantasy worlds. this is why i need to reread the sequel and pay more attention to it. i want to know more about the different schools (it was mentioned onna was specializing in illusion but that got dropped kind of) and how magic's practiced in different places and. all of it basically. god i love you worldbuilding. the plot was fairly interesting, even if the ending was slightly unsatisfying. i also wish the two storylines had intersected earlier because it did get a little headachey to follow at times. overall though i liked it quite a bit for the most part. i really liked seeing the different cultures of the world and how they interacted.
this gets to go with carter and saint death's daughter in the "4 stars for some personal reasons but also has stuff that'll live rent free in my head for the foreseeable future" corner.
first off tsira and jeckran OHHHH i loved them both SO much. dare i say it. reigboss and malewife. their banter with each other and other people and their relationship...while tsira is not technically a woman this is still everything i wanted in a m/f romance and more. they're so protective of each other and so silly and cute i just adore them.
onna was sadly a little disappointing. from the synopsis she seemed like the kind of character made for me. i love you genius girls forever!!! i wish more time had been put into her learning to not apologize for being smart and not have to put themselves down for men all the time because as much as i love girls who stick out and don't fit in and are unquestionably talented it makes me so sad when they cover up those talents and apologize for everything and let themselves get condescended to by men. i thought this was going to be a thing that she'd get character development for but it didn't feel fully fleshed out. also she was SO boy crazy it was a fucking slog. every time some new man entered the picture it's all about how handsome he is and his nice hair and whatever the fuck else. it was deeply deeply boring to read and i had to skim it. i kept forgetting who the fuck haran even was because whenever he entered the picture onna's internal monologue got so insufferable. she was a very likable character whenever she wasn't trying to impress some dude i wish we got more of that.
loga was also kind of a miss for me. he had a lot of things i could like in a character but i HATED how he talked to onna. it felt so condescending a lot of the time and sometimes even kind of flirtatious?? which was fucking gross. it got so bad that at one point i wondered if the twist at the end of the book would be he was taking advantage of her the whole time but no i guess that's just what their relationship is like. rubbed me the wrong way.
i think we also could have done with more women in the supporting cast. but that's neither here nor there.
the worldbuilding and the magic system and all that were completely top tier. exactly what i like to see in my fantasy worlds. this is why i need to reread the sequel and pay more attention to it. i want to know more about the different schools (it was mentioned onna was specializing in illusion but that got dropped kind of) and how magic's practiced in different places and. all of it basically. god i love you worldbuilding. the plot was fairly interesting, even if the ending was slightly unsatisfying. i also wish the two storylines had intersected earlier because it did get a little headachey to follow at times. overall though i liked it quite a bit for the most part. i really liked seeing the different cultures of the world and how they interacted.
this gets to go with carter and saint death's daughter in the "4 stars for some personal reasons but also has stuff that'll live rent free in my head for the foreseeable future" corner.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Misogyny and Violence
Minor: Pregnancy