The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos
Genre: YA Fantasy
Blurb (on back of book):
A magic-infused YA novel about friendship, first love, and feeling out of place that will bewitch fans of Rainbow Rowell and Maggie Stiefvater. Living in a small town where magic is frowned upon, Sam needs his friends James and Delia—and their time together in their school's magic club—to see him through to graduation.
But as soon as senior year starts, little cracks in their group begin to show. Sam may or may not be in love with James. Delia is growing more frustrated with their amateur magic club. And James reveals that he got mixed up with some sketchy magickers over the summer, putting a target on all their backs.
With so many fault lines threatening to derail his hopes for the year, Sam is forced to face the fact that the very love of magic that brought his group together is now tearing them apart—and there are some problems that no amount of magic can fix.
MY OPINION: **
I wanted to love this book. The premise was so good and I loved the plot. However, I was sadly disappointed by the end. It was one of those books where you keep reading in the hopes that it will get better and it never does, leaving you unsatisfied by the end.
The plot sounded good theoretically but it ended up falling flat. A lot of it was flimsy and not well-described and I would have liked to have seen better descriptions, especially of the fantasy elements such as the magic and the True Light group. The book felt like a realistic fiction novel with some random magic thrown in that wasn't well-written or described. If you had told me the whole story without any magic, barely anything would be different.
The characters were two-dimensional stick figures that I wanted so badly to love. Sam was by far my favorite since he was the most fleshed out and well-rounded out of the four protagonists seeing as the book was told from his perspective. However, all of the characters seemed to blend together and talk the same and act the same.
James was selfish and arrogant and didn't seem to care about his own friends. I hated how he went about his life thinking it was fine to do whatever he wanted even though his friends were obviously concerned about his actions. I was rooting for James and Sam the whole time though! SPOILER I was so mad that we didn't get a conclusion for them! We finally understand what happened between them in the end of the book but we don't get a conversation between them! I still don't know if James liked Sam or not! END SPOILER
Delia was even worse than James. Nothing angered me more than that girl. She just HAD to be the best at everything. She just HAD to do better than everyone else. I hate people like that because it angers me with the way that she treated her friends like nothing in favor of herself. I hated her character so much and I also hated the way the author just ended her story without letting us know what happened!
Denver was cute and I liked his character but I didn't ship him with Sam because I was a James rooter. However, I liked how he seemed to be the only one who cared about his friends rather than himself, and I loved his friendship/relationship with Sam.
I would have loved to have seen more magic-building so that the plot of the story would have been stronger. The book was more about teenage angst and Sam trying to navigate his friendships instead of the plot that was described with the fighting against the evil True Light group.
Liv and her group was just confusing and felt out of place every time I had to read from her perspective. I also didn't like her at all because of how negative and aggravating she was.
I would recommend this book to readers looking for a middle-grade-young-adult-esque fantasy novel!
Main Character: Sam, James, Delia, Denver, Liv
Sidekick(s): Amber, parents, etc
Villain(s): True Light, etc
Fantasy Elements: This book was based on magic.
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