This book has been on my TBR list for a while, and I honestly am sad that it took me this long to read it because it was such a joy! This was the last Sarah Gailey book that I had yet to read, and it was as witty and wonderful as I’ve come to expect all of their writing to be.
I totally recommend it as a beach read— it’s fast paced, fun, and dramatic in a way that you can totally lose yourself in, but it stands alone and won’t cause you to have a freak out about getting a copy of the next book (historically my biggest vacation stressor). If you’re looking for a book you can read in a weekend, this would be a great one.
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When We Were Magic
by Sarah Gailey
🌟: 5 / 5
📚: Your high school friend group should be there to back you up on anything— crushes, covering up a murder that you accidentally committed, prom drama— and Alexis’s friendships are downright magical.
💭: Behind a layer of magic, this story is so unapologetically realistic about the end of high school. When We Were Magic is one of those books about teenagers that, while they definitely are somewhat mature for their age, really reads like it’s truly from the perspective of teenagers. There’s so much awkwardness around crushes, relationships with parents, and navigating labels and how the characters understand themselves that it just felt undeniably high school.
The six main characters, Alexis and her friends, are the shining stars of this book. The way that they interact with each other is so (I have no other way to convey this, so I hope it makes sense) high school friend group. The way that they effortlessly drop humor into intense conversations, console each other about hard things, go all out to support each other, and cheer each other on in their successes as well as failures is just so reflective of the way that I experienced my friendships at this point in my life.
Gailey somehow really captured the in-between-ness of the changes that come with the end of high school and then played them up in the most extreme way, and I really think that this is something that they really shine at as an author. As this is (sadly) the last of their books that I had left to read, Gailey definitely has a talent for writing a fantastic story with real-life struggles at its heart, and then adding in a single sci-fi or fantasy twist that both pulls you in deeper and ups the drama of the situation. When We Were Magic is a perfect example of how they can do all of this AND write for a new audience than they normally write for. I’m just in awe at this book (and secretly wishing that it could get a dramatic tv adaptation a la Teen Wolf).
I have very few complaints about this story, but one of them is how they chose to portray Maryam, who is the only Muslim character in the book (and the only character with a named religion tied to them). While all of the other girls got so much characterization and were so genuinely concerned with supporting Alexis, Maryam was never really given her moment, with the reason being that she was Muslim. Other girls in the group who are Not White were never really addressed either, they were just described as some variation of Brown and left at that? It just felt very weird, and I haven’t seen very many people bring that up in their reviews (I fully acknowledge that most of the top reviews of this book are from other white people, which is a whole other thing). For as much diversity seems to exist in this story and how organic and normal it is, this just stood out to me when I noticed it.
All in all, I really loved this book. I assumed that it was a companion of sorts to Magic For Liars (one of my all time favorite books), but you can read either alone or together and be fine (honestly reading them as companions to each other would be a fantastic idea though).