The Spells We Cast: first book syndrome

 

I feel like it hasn’t been that long since I read my last Jason June book and yet, here I am reading and writing about another one. This one is The Spells We Cast. I’ve enjoyed every other Jason June book that I’ve read, and I know that I’ve mentioned in other posts about his books that I’m a really big fan of their writing style – because I find it very casual, easily readable, and actually quite similar to mine. All very chatty.

The blurb says that Nigel Barrett has spent his whole life looking forward to the Culling, his one chance to secure a happy future. Each year, the spellcasting competition determines which of the country’s teenage magicians will join the secret society known as the Guild and which will be stripped of their powers to preserve magical balance. More than anything, Nigel wants to fight evil alongside his fellow magicians as part of the guild. But it’s just Nigel’s luck that he can’t stop clashing with Ori Olson, a snarky pessimist who wants nothing to do with him – especially after Nigel and Ori realise that sparks fly, literally, whenever they’re together. Somehow the boys’ powers are stronger, less predictable, more exciting the closer they get – not that they can risk becoming attached. Because as the field narrows and the challenges grow more dangerous, one thing becomes clear: The strange way the boys’ powers combine could threaten their success in the Culling, the future of the Guild, and even the fate of the country. It’s too bad that the more Nigel experiences the thrill of their connection, the less he wants to let it go…

Right from the off, Nigel is getting dumped by his now ex-boyfriend, Jeremy, who tells him it’s because that Nigel is taking a year off and he’s heading to Duke – and also tells him that he thought Nigel would be relieved, since they’ve barely had time for each other anyway. Something I appreciated was that I was assuming this book was going to be a full magical world, but that’s quickly proven wrong when Nigel mentions to the reader that it’s forbidden for a magic user to tell any human, that they’re not married to, that they have magical abilities. So, it’s sort of an urban fantasy kind of thing, and then the Culling isn’t even optional. I thought it was going to be some kind of thing they’d have to sign up for, not that it just happened, and that if Nigel fails, he gets his magic stripped.

There were these two characters, Jaleesa and Laurel, who were together. And they were very much the antagonists of the whole thing. It’s clear that they weren’t villain villains or anything, because the setup you see throughout the whole book is basically that while all the divas are training – Nigel, Ori, Bex, Jaleesa, and Laurel – one major thing they have to learn is that the best thing for fighting your weaknesses is fellow magicians. So there’s was a huge importance placed on teamwork. The vibe I got was that, even though during the Culling it’s every magician for themselves, once the Culling was over, every magician was on the same team, no matter who they were. But to get back to Jaleesa and Laurel, one of their fathers was very against the two of them being together, and you could tell that was an effort to humanise them in the fact that the two of them were just awful, nasty, rank people throughout the book. Constantly belittling and talking down to the other magicians, especially Nigel. They were those kinds of characters where you’d be shown something to try and make you feel bad for them, but then they’d just be horrible again and you’re like, “I get why you are the way you are, but that doesn’t excuse you being horrible.”

I also loved Nigel, growing up on a farm, having cowboy ties throughout everything for him in the book. Like, he ends up with an ice horse sidekick, which makes sense for a cowboy magician. At one point when he needs to get down from somewhere high, his idea is to give himself chicken feathers, because he knows that while they can’t fly, they float, so he could get down safely. His Meema, her favourite animal was the bull, so that ended up basically being her companion magical creature, whereas, like I mentioned, Nigel ends up with an ice horse.

Nigel and Ori knew each other briefly when they were younger, but as I was reading, I found myself wanting to know more about it. Like, it kept getting mentioned, this thing that happened, and I wanted something solid. I wanted to understand it too. And you did end up learning more throughout the book. Like, Nigel and Ori would get visions of each other’s lives, Nigel sees Ori’s sister, Cassie, dying to the Depraved, and Ori sees the way that Nigel’s father has treated him throughout his life. The relationship between Nigel and his father was kind of down to the fact that his father has his magic stripped from him, when Nigel’s grandma, Meema, didn’t, and was one of the people in charge, or of importance to the Guild.

This book, for me, did fall prey to the problem of it being a fantasy book. That’s obviously not a negative from an objective point of view, but strictly a subjective one. And that’s simply down to the fact that I know that as a reader, I’m not the biggest fan of fantasy. To be honest, it’s not just as a reader, it’s as a consumer in general, as I have the same think when it comes to television and video games. I’ve never been able to explain, or pinpoint exactly what it is, but there needs to be a very specific vibe to fantasy for me to fully enjoy it. And the whole time I was reading this book, for as much as I loved the vibes between Nigel and Ori, couldn’t get passed the fact that I was thinking, “This certainly is fantasy”. I think what I’ve got it down to is that I prefer urban fantasy. But even that is an “I think”. I couldn’t even confirm it. So I definitely didn’t feel fully connected to this book, but that is solely down to it being fantasy. And I just think I’m not the consumer for fantasy. I think I like paranormal more than I do fantasy. I like ghosts and things like merfolk (see Out of the Blue by Jason June lol) for my kind of fantasy.

I don’t know, I feel bad saying this, since June is one of my favourite authors, but I just didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as I have his other books. I think that maybe one of my biggest gripes, when it comes to fantasy, is how often it needs to be split into multiple books to tell a whole story. And I know that there’s a sequel to this book coming out, which I’m hoping expands on a lot of aspects in this book that I felt needed to be expanded on, but I felt like a bunch of parts of this book just felt like they happened really quickly and were a bit rushed. Like, our characters are going through these trials, the Culling, as apprentice magicians, and then by the end of the book, they’re the main focus of this grand battle on the side of a volcano. Again, I feel bad saying all of this, but I’m not going to ignore the fact that I didn’t love this book like I wanted to, but it just didn’t hit. And I think part of it is also this is the first Jason June book I haven’t enjoyed.

But just so I’m not ending this post on a negative. This book was full of the things that I think June always does well. The characters. I always appreciate the characters in a Jason June book. There’s always a diverse cast, but not in a shoehorned, diversity hire, kind of way, but in the way that the world is just diverse, and June just shows that off well. I think the setup for the obvious sequel that’s coming was really good. I mentioned the battle on the side of the volcano. At the end of this battle Nigel feels this strange, dark, feeling inside of him, and my thoughts are that it’s setting up for the whole plot line of normal paragon character has been imbued with some sinister, evil, energy that’s going to corrupt them.

Anyway, that’s this post. Again, I’m sad I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to, but I’ll definitely read the sequel.

Okay, bye!