Review: Magic Today Anne McCluskey

Magic Today (Mathilda Holida #1)
by Anna McCluskey

My Rating: 2 stars

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: MF

Blurb:
Magic is real – and it’s more complicated than even most mages know….

Between her divorce, her terrible boss, and her dwindling finances, impulsive Mattie’s life is getting more and more problematic by the day. So when she learns that Tillie, her twin sister, is missing, she drops everything and rushes across the country to join her friend Trevor in the search. But they soon learn that the world is full of forces they never even imagined existed, and Tillie is mixed up in all of it.

As Mattie and Trevor struggle to untangle the mess Tillie left behind, they find themselves questioning everything they knew to be true. Who can they trust? Is Tillie even still alive? Is she one of the good guys or the bad? And, most important of all, will they be able to figure out what happened to Tillie before it happens to them?

My Review

The cover and interesting sounding blurb caught my eye and I decided to buy a copy. Not much later I decided to pick it up. Unfortunately this one didn’t quite work for me. It’s just one of those reads that just didn’t quite work for me.

Magic Today has quite the slow start. We see a bit of Mattie’s life and how things in her life slowly go downhill and only get worse. Until she packs up her stuff and moves to the other side of the US to try and find her sister Tillie who has gone missing. She then teams up with Trevor, Tillie’s best friend, and together they slowly discover more about why Tillie went missing and get plunged into the world of magic.

I liked the set up with Mattie going to help find Tillie. I just wish it had all progressed a bit faster, there were plenty of scenes that I didn’t really care for or didn’t see the need for. I think part of this is because I never really connected with Mattie. I couldn’t relate to her, she was impulsive and sometimes rushed into things without thinking it through. This is clearly intentional, but I just didn’t find it as interesting to read about. I also didn’t really like her, although I did like how much she cares about her sister.

My favorite part of this book is when Mattie and Trevor realize magic is real and slowly find out more. That part was exciting and engaging. It’s weird to say, but the middle was my favorite part of this book. The start was slow and didn’t grab my attention. And the ending didn’t work for me either. It felt very anti-climactic and the battle lacked impact for me as I didn’t feel the relevance and tension. And there is a certain development that just didn’t work for me.

I did like the idea of the world building/ magic. With how there are 3 different classes of magic users and it was nice getting a bit of a feel for each of them. Besides that though I would’ve loved to see more of the world. To me it didn’t make sense magic wasn’t more wide spread, they treat it as a big secret, but then everyone seems so careless in it’s use and everyone can become a magic user. With those premises it just felt to me that it didn’t make sense there weren’t more magic users or everyone being aware of it.

To summarize: Unfortunately this book didn’t work for me. The start was slow and I had trouble getting into the book and I didn’t like or related to the main characters. I like the set-up for how she sets out to find her sister, but found the pacing too slow most of the time. The middle was the best part when Trevor and Mattie discover magic and learn more about it. And then ending felt lackluster and anti climactic to me. The world building concept was interesting, but not as well worked out as I would’ve liked. Unfortunately this one didn’t quite work for me.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.