Spells For Forgetting by Adrienne Young
SYNOPSIS
Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily. She’d once dreamt of running away with August, eager to escape Saoirse Island and chase new dreams together. Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence amount this tight-knit community steeped in folklore and tradition.
When August returns after fourteen years to bury his mother’s ashes, Emery must confront her first love and the reason he left so abruptly. But the town wants August gone again. And as the island shows signs of strange happenings, the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises threatens to reveal the truth behind Lily’s death once and for all.
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This was my most anticipated book of October and unfortunately… it let me down. This is Adrienne Young’s first adult novel and yet it still read YA. When I’m reading an adult story, I expect it to not read like YA. It was a wonderful concept and I was extremely intrigued by the setting and the very subtle magic realism threaded throughout. And I did enjoy the characters, to a point but I felt they were reduced to surface level because of the various points of view we read from. It was still a good atmospheric read for October but it didn’t have enough magic for what it’s marketed for and I’d hoped for deeper plotlines.
We start the book off in present day with August as he returns to the island he hasn’t been to in fourteen good years so he can bury his mother. He’s immediately unwelcome even on the ferry and as soon as he arrives the police chief is threatening him that he better not stay. I don’t care what suspicions a town has of someone there is absolutely no call for that and I began to feel the plot become very unrealistic. Small towns may be unwelcoming to newcomers, especially tourist towns, but they don’t get to just do whatever they want openly and publicly. We then begin to switch back and forth between August and Emery, the girl he left behind who is stuck, frozen in time and behaviour to that teenage girl that lost the love of her life. As they awkwardly come back together and hash out their past and begin to unravel the mystery of what really happened fourteen years ago to drive August away, we are sprinkled with other ambiguous points of view and scattered flashbacks meant to further the plot but really just revealed too much too soon.
The island setting was my favourite part of this book. It’s this small island off the coast of Oregon that has the perfect rainy/moody weather. It’s fall on an island that boasts autumn tourism and a legendary apple orchard that seems to be the source of the island’s magic. The small tidbits of the island’s history and how the women of the island have painstakingly kept the magic alive throughout the generations was fascinating. I also really loved that it was set up as an almost parallel version of Stars Hollow. Same small nosy town with fall vibes but much darker and more dangerous. Having only one ferry as the way to get on and off the island was a good touch too as it gave even the reader a feel of being trapped there. If something happens how do you wait till the morning ferry to leave? It helped set the tone for a good mystery.
What I didn’t like: the drama. I’ve said already that this book felt YA and what I mean by that is, I was reading about people in their mid-30s to early 90s act like they were all 18 and in the middle of a high school drama. I come from a small town so I do get how in some cases even adults act like children but when it was as serious as murder they still stuck to backstabbing being the worst that could be done, not, you know, KILLING EACH OTHER. It felt very unrealistic and it frustrated me a lot. Not just because it gave smalltowns this paint job of everyone there being stuck, backwards, or uneducated and unwelcoming, but because they were portrayed as downright evil. For being protective of their town from tourists…. ? No. There were also dumb reasons for all the drama. Oh your best friend liked your girlfriend back in high school and its now been nearly two decades and you’re going to beef about it? I can barely remember crushes and fights from high school so I guess props to them for holding a grudge so long.
Overall, I was extremely disappointed by this book just given the marketing. Social media viral books need to be marketed as what they are, not the tropes they think will make people most likely to buy them because then everyone gets let down. It did a real disservice to this author in my opinion. I also feel like Young just isn’t for me since this is the second book of hers that I’ve found very difficult to connect to the characters. I gave it 3 stars because the mystery was intriguing enough for me to continue on but everything else just felt too surface level for me.