Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
If you are going to promise me a gender-flipped version of You with Gothic elements you have to bring it. I don’t know what this was, but it was not that and I got to 49 percent before I DNFed this book. I just could not and would not go on. I got to chapter 32 and said that’s it. I don’t care enough about any of these one note characters and just hope something bad happens to mostly every character at this point.
The overall plot to A Spell for Saints and Sinners is that Ingrid needs money to save her grandmother’s house and then managing to do a fortune for the town’s rich girl, named Sailor and becoming her new best friend (pet) just didn’t bring it at all. And when Sailor decides that she’s going to bring Ingrid into her inner circle to push her to more fame and fortune, Ingrid decides she will do whatever it takes to stay Sailor’s true best friend.
Ingrid was annoying and kept saying “Oh Goddess” every five seconds that I started having flashbacks to 50 Shades of Grey. It didn’t help that every man in the area was in love with her it seemed. And I know it wasn’t supposed to be funny, but the book synopsis calls Ingrid a psychic, but the actual book has her calling herself a witch and she goes around just telling people I am a witch. I don’t know why, but it made me crack up each time.
And her so called best friendship with Sailor was aggravating. Neither one of them seemed to have any coping mechanisms. We hear about Ingrid’s other friendship with her roommate and others and it felt like every chapter she was discovering people had feelings. Not one person felt even a trinkle developed while I was reading this.
I also am ticked that I got told there’s Gothic horror elements in this. Not so far. This is just magical realism (which I love) that is not exactly done to perfection either, but it’s definitely not Gothic horror.
The flow was bad. I am at 49 percent and it just kept going on and on. I guess I am supposed to care that Ingrid is now in with the rich but there’s no tension. Just scenes of her going from place to place and not wanting her poor friend’s to embarrass her.
All that to say, not really worth it to me to read to the end for a twist some readers called out.
