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A review by vulturetime
Will Do Magic for Small Change by Andrea Hairston
2.5
It was fine, my experience of reading it was not the most ideal. I don't think I clicked very well with Hairston's prose and additionally, this was a book I marked as "to read" simply because of the title--hadn't read the description or anything. Normally, I still like books fine when I don't know what they're about, but from the title, I assumed this would be a lot more like urban fantasy and it just wasn't.
I liked the Wanderer's segments the most and I thought there were some really cool concepts. While Cinnamon's story had stuff I'd be interested in, the execution just wasn't it for me. Cinnamon's voice as a character, to me, felt a bit over the place--sometimes she read a lot younger than she actually was and it was a bit confusing. She also gets into a relationship with her two friends and I wasn't really sold on why they became friends and their affection for each other.
As a very minor note, the book also gets at least one thing wrong. In the back, it says "Allahu akbar" is Farsi for "God is great" when it's not. Allahu akbar is Arabic. Along that note, a Persian character is mentioned with having the name Saeed. There are plenty of Persian people with that name (and with other Arabic names, due to history etc. etc.) but I kind of side-eyed it when I first read that because saying Allahu akbar is Farsi when it's Arabic doesn't build a good precedent for not confusing Arabic and Farsi.
Other more minor complaints of the book: the f-slur is used a LOT. Also, Cinnamon's brother, Sekou, was in a relationship with a relatively older man when he was a teenager and yes that happens in real life, but it was still uncomfortable to read about, as well as the whole waiting for Sekou to turn eighteen. Like trust me, adults should not been finding teens attractive.
I liked the Wanderer's segments the most and I thought there were some really cool concepts. While Cinnamon's story had stuff I'd be interested in, the execution just wasn't it for me. Cinnamon's voice as a character, to me, felt a bit over the place--sometimes she read a lot younger than she actually was and it was a bit confusing. She also gets into a relationship with her two friends and I wasn't really sold on why they became friends and their affection for each other.
As a very minor note, the book also gets at least one thing wrong. In the back, it says "Allahu akbar" is Farsi for "God is great" when it's not. Allahu akbar is Arabic. Along that note, a Persian character is mentioned with having the name Saeed. There are plenty of Persian people with that name (and with other Arabic names, due to history etc. etc.) but I kind of side-eyed it when I first read that because saying Allahu akbar is Farsi when it's Arabic doesn't build a good precedent for not confusing Arabic and Farsi.
Other more minor complaints of the book: the f-slur is used a LOT. Also, Cinnamon's brother, Sekou, was in a relationship with a relatively older man when he was a teenager and yes that happens in real life, but it was still uncomfortable to read about, as well as the whole waiting for Sekou to turn eighteen. Like trust me, adults should not been finding teens attractive.