A review by bookdragon_library
The Magical Imperfect by Chris Baron

5.0

This book was an amazing surprise and a 5 star read for me. I couldn’t put it down. I’ve read a lot of Novels in Verse recently and often find them written in normal sounding sentences but just laid out like a poem on the page with short lines. However, the language of this book was captivating and felt like poetry to me. I’m torn on if it is pure historical fiction because there are some potentially “magical” twists. This is a true own voices book with the author being Jewish like the main character Etan and his wife being Filipino with eczema like the other main character Malia. Etan’s mom had severe depression and went to a psychiatric hospital and Etan suffered from mutism as a result. It was such a layered story with relationships and dynamics and themes of immigration and underlying bias. All set against the backdrop of the 1989 Earthquake in the San Francisco area. There is a wonderful Author's note at the back describing the inspiration for the story and characters.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review.