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Lessons in Magic and Disaster
From the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus Award-winning author of All the Birds in the Sky comes a heartfelt and intimately drawn portrait of a young trans woman witch who teaches her mother magic, following the death of her wife. Perfect for fans of Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke.
Jamie's mother, Serena, has been hiding in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, since her life fell apart. The death of her wife, to cancer, proved too much for Serena. And Jamie, well Jamie hasn’t been doing too well either.
But Jamie has a secret: she's a powerful witch, and now she's decided to teach Serena to cast spells, so her mother can get her life back. Her magic is a question of exchanges, of creating the world you want to live in.
As the strains of her grief start to affect her marriage to Ro, Jamie realises she doesn’t know the whole story of what happened to her mothers all those years ago. With Serena heading down a destructive path with her magic, and the secrets Jamie is keeping from Ro piling up, it’s only a matter of time before something gives.
Desperately trying to hold it all together, Jamie seeks to understand the secrets of a three-hundred-year-old magical book, her mother and her wife, before it all falls apart.
Jamie's mother, Serena, has been hiding in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, since her life fell apart. The death of her wife, to cancer, proved too much for Serena. And Jamie, well Jamie hasn’t been doing too well either.
But Jamie has a secret: she's a powerful witch, and now she's decided to teach Serena to cast spells, so her mother can get her life back. Her magic is a question of exchanges, of creating the world you want to live in.
As the strains of her grief start to affect her marriage to Ro, Jamie realises she doesn’t know the whole story of what happened to her mothers all those years ago. With Serena heading down a destructive path with her magic, and the secrets Jamie is keeping from Ro piling up, it’s only a matter of time before something gives.
Desperately trying to hold it all together, Jamie seeks to understand the secrets of a three-hundred-year-old magical book, her mother and her wife, before it all falls apart.
448 pages, Paperback
First published August 19, 2025
About the author
Charlie Jane Anders
175 books4,107 followersMy latest book is Victories Greater Than Death. Coming in August: Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories.
Previously: All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, and a short story collection, Six Months, Three Days, Five Others.
Coming soon: An adult novel, and a short story collection called Even Greater Mistakes.
I used to write for a site called io9.com, and now I write for various places here and there.
I won the Emperor Norton Award, for “extraordinary invention and creativity unhindered by the constraints of paltry reason.” I've also won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, a William H. Crawford Award, a Theodore Sturgeon Award, a Locus Award and a Lambda Literary Award.
My stories, essays and journalism have appeared in Wired Magazine, the Boston Review, Conjunctions, Tin House, Slate, MIT Technology Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Tor.com, Lightspeed Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, ZYZZYVA, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, 3 AM Magazine, Flurb.net, Monkey Bicycle, Pindeldyboz, Instant City, Broken Pencil, and in tons and tons of anthologies.
I organize Writers With Drinks, which is a monthly reading series here in San Francisco that mashes up a ton of different genres. I co-host a Hugo Award-winning podcast, Our Opinions Are Correct, with Annalee Newitz.
Back in 2007, Annalee and I put out a book of first-person stories by female geeks called She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology and Other Nerdy Stuff. There was a lot of resistance to doing this book, because nobody believed there was a market for writing about female geeks. Also, Annalee and I put out a print magazine called other, which was about pop culture, politics and general weirdness, aimed at people who don’t fit into other categories. To raise money for other magazine, we put on events like a Ballerina Pie Fight – which is just what it sounds like – and a sexy show in a hair salon where people took off their clothes while getting their hair cut.
I used to live in a Buddhist nunnery, when I was a teenager. I love to do karaoke. I eat way too much spicy food. I hug trees and pat stone lions for luck. I talk to myself way too much when I’m working on a story.
Previously: All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, and a short story collection, Six Months, Three Days, Five Others.
Coming soon: An adult novel, and a short story collection called Even Greater Mistakes.
I used to write for a site called io9.com, and now I write for various places here and there.
I won the Emperor Norton Award, for “extraordinary invention and creativity unhindered by the constraints of paltry reason.” I've also won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, a William H. Crawford Award, a Theodore Sturgeon Award, a Locus Award and a Lambda Literary Award.
My stories, essays and journalism have appeared in Wired Magazine, the Boston Review, Conjunctions, Tin House, Slate, MIT Technology Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Tor.com, Lightspeed Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, ZYZZYVA, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, 3 AM Magazine, Flurb.net, Monkey Bicycle, Pindeldyboz, Instant City, Broken Pencil, and in tons and tons of anthologies.
I organize Writers With Drinks, which is a monthly reading series here in San Francisco that mashes up a ton of different genres. I co-host a Hugo Award-winning podcast, Our Opinions Are Correct, with Annalee Newitz.
Back in 2007, Annalee and I put out a book of first-person stories by female geeks called She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology and Other Nerdy Stuff. There was a lot of resistance to doing this book, because nobody believed there was a market for writing about female geeks. Also, Annalee and I put out a print magazine called other, which was about pop culture, politics and general weirdness, aimed at people who don’t fit into other categories. To raise money for other magazine, we put on events like a Ballerina Pie Fight – which is just what it sounds like – and a sexy show in a hair salon where people took off their clothes while getting their hair cut.
I used to live in a Buddhist nunnery, when I was a teenager. I love to do karaoke. I eat way too much spicy food. I hug trees and pat stone lions for luck. I talk to myself way too much when I’m working on a story.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 358 reviews
June 5, 2025
What a lovely novel, a real genre-buster that brings in so many elements to form a patchwork that is somehow challenging and cozy.
So much to sink your teeth into. So much I enjoyed. I loved the almost anti-worldbuilding approach Anders takes here, where the magic is intuitive, unexplained, more about feelings and instincts than anything else. It feels a lot like, well, just being a person. Trying to figure out who you are and what you want just as much as it is trying to do a spell. Magic is often a metaphor, but it's not always such a mess and I loved it.
There is also the 18th century literature of it all. I purposely did not look up all the books Anders referenced because I wanted to act as if they were all absolutely real. So imagine my surprise when nearly all of them actually are. (There is one, central novel that Anders invents.) She's done such an impressive job of creating this novel, of tying it back to many other works and events with real people, that it all feels so deep and tangible and full of research you can get lost in along with Jamie.
But what Anders does best here is dive all the way into the messy relationships at the core of the novel. Between Jamie and her mother Serena. Between Jamie and her partner Ro. Between Serena and her wife Mae. None of these relationships are simple. They involve conflicts and secrets and struggle. They are also fun and sexy and comforting. Love stories are all well and good, but I am a sucker for a story about people who don't know if they are falling out of love, who are struggling to figure out if love is worth saving. These are not questions with easy answers. And these are not characters facing straightforward decisions. Jamie is pulled between Serena and Ro, a mother she feels obligated to care for and a partner who is a safe and reliable refuge. Why would Jamie jeopardize her incredibly wholesome relationship to help a mother who may not deserve her help? Why can't she stop herself? And does that mean that her relationship isn't as healthy as it seems? The flashbacks to Serena and Mae, Jamie's parents, help us see how Serena got to be who she is and explain more about who Jamie is, too. Ultimately this is actually, despite all the other genres involved, a coming of age novel.
A heavily queer cast (maybe a straight character popped up here and there? who's to say), this book felt really rooted in reality for being a fantasy novel. I felt like these were people I knew, people I see in real life.
I'm not much of a Fantasy reader, but I think this is a book that could work for readers of many different genres. Hand it to any queer nerd, and you'll have a happy reader.
So much to sink your teeth into. So much I enjoyed. I loved the almost anti-worldbuilding approach Anders takes here, where the magic is intuitive, unexplained, more about feelings and instincts than anything else. It feels a lot like, well, just being a person. Trying to figure out who you are and what you want just as much as it is trying to do a spell. Magic is often a metaphor, but it's not always such a mess and I loved it.
There is also the 18th century literature of it all. I purposely did not look up all the books Anders referenced because I wanted to act as if they were all absolutely real. So imagine my surprise when nearly all of them actually are. (There is one, central novel that Anders invents.) She's done such an impressive job of creating this novel, of tying it back to many other works and events with real people, that it all feels so deep and tangible and full of research you can get lost in along with Jamie.
But what Anders does best here is dive all the way into the messy relationships at the core of the novel. Between Jamie and her mother Serena. Between Jamie and her partner Ro. Between Serena and her wife Mae. None of these relationships are simple. They involve conflicts and secrets and struggle. They are also fun and sexy and comforting. Love stories are all well and good, but I am a sucker for a story about people who don't know if they are falling out of love, who are struggling to figure out if love is worth saving. These are not questions with easy answers. And these are not characters facing straightforward decisions. Jamie is pulled between Serena and Ro, a mother she feels obligated to care for and a partner who is a safe and reliable refuge. Why would Jamie jeopardize her incredibly wholesome relationship to help a mother who may not deserve her help? Why can't she stop herself? And does that mean that her relationship isn't as healthy as it seems? The flashbacks to Serena and Mae, Jamie's parents, help us see how Serena got to be who she is and explain more about who Jamie is, too. Ultimately this is actually, despite all the other genres involved, a coming of age novel.
A heavily queer cast (maybe a straight character popped up here and there? who's to say), this book felt really rooted in reality for being a fantasy novel. I felt like these were people I knew, people I see in real life.
I'm not much of a Fantasy reader, but I think this is a book that could work for readers of many different genres. Hand it to any queer nerd, and you'll have a happy reader.
July 15, 2026
As always, Ms. Anders' prose is five stars all the way. Her writing is utterly exquisite. It always reminds me a bit of Booker Prize winner A. S. Byatt's prose because it is exactly that level of genius and precision. Every sentence is loaded, and she manages to say volumes in few words and often with deceptively simple diction. But this said, her writing never comes off as academic or pretentious, and on one level, it is extremely accessible--anyone and everyone can enjoy her prose. For those who like deconstructing texts, there are worlds of depth spinning beneath the surface of every paragraph. Her humor, her wit, her overall tone is something every literature lover must experience. She is a master of nuance. And the silences in her text--what is left unsaid, unstated, but reader-felt with excoriating force--are powerfully lasting.
If my house were on fire, I'd make sure all the people were out, save the pets, then rush back in for my Charlie Jane Anders' books. So to be blunt, I love this woman's writing.
I rated this one a 4 instead of a 5 based on her other works. If I were comparing this book against other magical realism published in the last few years, then it would clearly be a 5. But compared with her own story collections, All the Birds in the Sky, and The City in the Middle of the Night; Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a bit less dazzling and a bit more labored in some sections. I loved it. I just loved it less than her other work. I'm not sure that's fair, rating her against herself. But, that's my explanation.
----
Brief Summary:
Jamie, daughter of Serena and Mae, attempts to reconnect with her mother Serena. Readers meet both main characters years after Mae has passed away, having succumbed to a brutal cancer. Serena has been in a depression and closed herself off from the world. Jamie, a natural witch who has taught herself to bring positive things into being by leaving offerings in abandoned places, postulates that if she can teach her mother how to do magic, it will breathe new life into their relationship. As with all magic, intention is everything, and there is always a price. Serena leans towards using magic for negative ends, and of course that comes right back to her threefold.
Thoughts about Representation:
I am extremely struck by how accurately and responsibly Ms. Anders' discussions of "magic" followed Wiccan beliefs. I am certain she must have consulted members of circles, as she took great pains to represent everyday magic and the notion of being a natural, instinctual witch in a positive way.
LGBTQ relationships and the way they are influenced culturally and generationally are main focuses. The experiences Jamie has had in her life with her girlfriend serve as a comparison to how her mothers had to navigate their relationship during a time of much greater intolerance. A portrait of her mothers' relationship takes shape via flashbacks, and they are beautiful scenes, but it's a hard won beauty. Serena and Mae's past is another country to Jamie, and so is the violence of intolerance--a violence that seems to have braided itself into her mother's current depression born out of mourning Mae. One scene in particular stayed with me. It's a memory Serena has of a bigoted man throwing a glass bottle at her head. I remember those occurrences, that entitlement, that hate that made people feel justified in throwing objects that could greatly injure or even kill. I have even shared similar stories with younger friends fortunate enough to find such acts shocking.
I have seen this novel described as a low stakes fantasy. I see it more as a magically-real novel in which the stakes are nothing less than a battle for "self" when there's so much trauma recovery feels almost impossible. With remarkable emotional restraint, Anders has painted Serena's pain, pain with fangs in a lockjaw. This is a novel about trauma, and we feel Jamie's frustration and desperation, as she tries to help her mother just as much as we feel Serena's loss. The reader serves as primary witness..
Trigger Warnings:
If you have recently lost a parent or spouse you may want to put off reading this one for a little while. As I mentioned earlier, Ms. Anders' writing exemplifies why emotional restraint makes readers feel more. And readers will feel the violent pain of loss aa it has come to define Serena's world.
There are also frank descriptions of intolerance. I would never advocate avoiding reading about honest depictions of such--books like this are windows opening on a greater understanding of and empathy with those societal norms other. But if you have recently been through your own traumatic experience with bigotry, you should be aware that LIMAD doesn't pull punches.
I strongly recommend Lessons in Magic and Disaster to absolutely everyone, but especially to literature students who love language and theory and especially to aspiring writers who need to work on saying more with fewer words and refraining from telling the emotion instead of showing it indirectly. All creative writing students should consume a steady diet of Charlie Jane Anders (in my humble opinion ☺️). The whole country would be so much better off for doing the same.
If my house were on fire, I'd make sure all the people were out, save the pets, then rush back in for my Charlie Jane Anders' books. So to be blunt, I love this woman's writing.
I rated this one a 4 instead of a 5 based on her other works. If I were comparing this book against other magical realism published in the last few years, then it would clearly be a 5. But compared with her own story collections, All the Birds in the Sky, and The City in the Middle of the Night; Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a bit less dazzling and a bit more labored in some sections. I loved it. I just loved it less than her other work. I'm not sure that's fair, rating her against herself. But, that's my explanation.
----
Brief Summary:
Jamie, daughter of Serena and Mae, attempts to reconnect with her mother Serena. Readers meet both main characters years after Mae has passed away, having succumbed to a brutal cancer. Serena has been in a depression and closed herself off from the world. Jamie, a natural witch who has taught herself to bring positive things into being by leaving offerings in abandoned places, postulates that if she can teach her mother how to do magic, it will breathe new life into their relationship. As with all magic, intention is everything, and there is always a price. Serena leans towards using magic for negative ends, and of course that comes right back to her threefold.
Thoughts about Representation:
I am extremely struck by how accurately and responsibly Ms. Anders' discussions of "magic" followed Wiccan beliefs. I am certain she must have consulted members of circles, as she took great pains to represent everyday magic and the notion of being a natural, instinctual witch in a positive way.
LGBTQ relationships and the way they are influenced culturally and generationally are main focuses. The experiences Jamie has had in her life with her girlfriend serve as a comparison to how her mothers had to navigate their relationship during a time of much greater intolerance. A portrait of her mothers' relationship takes shape via flashbacks, and they are beautiful scenes, but it's a hard won beauty. Serena and Mae's past is another country to Jamie, and so is the violence of intolerance--a violence that seems to have braided itself into her mother's current depression born out of mourning Mae. One scene in particular stayed with me. It's a memory Serena has of a bigoted man throwing a glass bottle at her head. I remember those occurrences, that entitlement, that hate that made people feel justified in throwing objects that could greatly injure or even kill. I have even shared similar stories with younger friends fortunate enough to find such acts shocking.
I have seen this novel described as a low stakes fantasy. I see it more as a magically-real novel in which the stakes are nothing less than a battle for "self" when there's so much trauma recovery feels almost impossible. With remarkable emotional restraint, Anders has painted Serena's pain, pain with fangs in a lockjaw. This is a novel about trauma, and we feel Jamie's frustration and desperation, as she tries to help her mother just as much as we feel Serena's loss. The reader serves as primary witness..
Trigger Warnings:
If you have recently lost a parent or spouse you may want to put off reading this one for a little while. As I mentioned earlier, Ms. Anders' writing exemplifies why emotional restraint makes readers feel more. And readers will feel the violent pain of loss aa it has come to define Serena's world.
There are also frank descriptions of intolerance. I would never advocate avoiding reading about honest depictions of such--books like this are windows opening on a greater understanding of and empathy with those societal norms other. But if you have recently been through your own traumatic experience with bigotry, you should be aware that LIMAD doesn't pull punches.
I strongly recommend Lessons in Magic and Disaster to absolutely everyone, but especially to literature students who love language and theory and especially to aspiring writers who need to work on saying more with fewer words and refraining from telling the emotion instead of showing it indirectly. All creative writing students should consume a steady diet of Charlie Jane Anders (in my humble opinion ☺️). The whole country would be so much better off for doing the same.
September 2, 2025
Somehow I was first in line when my library finally got this so I read it quickly as I could so others could discover its joys :D
With the Alice Hoffman comp I thought this was going to be fluffy and cozy but its very much rooted in the here and now with all of the vitriol of right wing media, and the endless commodification of higher education, housing etc. All that PLUS....loving, messy queer marriages and family, AND "forgotten" women authors of 18th century britian, AND the kind of magic being practiced today by your witchy friends and neighbours. It's a lot to pull together! Early on I wasn't sure if it was going to work for me, but I decided to just relax and open my self up to the story Anders wanted to tell. And I was easily swayed by Ander's characters with all of their honesty, soul searching and loving kindness.
I think this will appeal to a lot of different readers: fans of historical fiction and classics, low fantasy, cozy fantasy and queer lit fic.
With the Alice Hoffman comp I thought this was going to be fluffy and cozy but its very much rooted in the here and now with all of the vitriol of right wing media, and the endless commodification of higher education, housing etc. All that PLUS....loving, messy queer marriages and family, AND "forgotten" women authors of 18th century britian, AND the kind of magic being practiced today by your witchy friends and neighbours. It's a lot to pull together! Early on I wasn't sure if it was going to work for me, but I decided to just relax and open my self up to the story Anders wanted to tell. And I was easily swayed by Ander's characters with all of their honesty, soul searching and loving kindness.
I think this will appeal to a lot of different readers: fans of historical fiction and classics, low fantasy, cozy fantasy and queer lit fic.
December 27, 2024
eARC
I have so many thoughts about this book, I don't know where to begin.
The main character of Jamie is so vibrant and human, silly and warm, anxious and relatable. It's hard to separate her from the author, or her smart, insightful non-binary partner Ro from the author's smart, insightful non-binary partner. Because of this, the book feels like Charlie Jane Anders's most personal work.
It's easy to fall into the trap that this is a simple book, but it isn't. The author deftly balances two POVs, actual historical works, and fictional historical works, along with a magic system that truly feels real. And then there's the sense that every character has facets and layers that make them ultimately unknowable, which is...what actual people are: complex and unpredictable.
I haven't even touched on the grief, tension, and real-life horror that the book is saturated in. (Gavin can go jump off of a cliff.) There was a part where I felt sick with a combination of anxiety and anger for these characters.
Anders does a great job balancing so much here while creating a readable book that feels as magical as it does real.
I have so many thoughts about this book, I don't know where to begin.
The main character of Jamie is so vibrant and human, silly and warm, anxious and relatable. It's hard to separate her from the author, or her smart, insightful non-binary partner Ro from the author's smart, insightful non-binary partner. Because of this, the book feels like Charlie Jane Anders's most personal work.
It's easy to fall into the trap that this is a simple book, but it isn't. The author deftly balances two POVs, actual historical works, and fictional historical works, along with a magic system that truly feels real. And then there's the sense that every character has facets and layers that make them ultimately unknowable, which is...what actual people are: complex and unpredictable.
I haven't even touched on the grief, tension, and real-life horror that the book is saturated in. (Gavin can go jump off of a cliff.) There was a part where I felt sick with a combination of anxiety and anger for these characters.
Anders does a great job balancing so much here while creating a readable book that feels as magical as it does real.
April 11, 2025
Rec. by: Previous work, Rachel, and a Goodreads giveaway
Rec. for: Diana C., in particular, but also for families, found and otherwise
Lessons in Magic and Disaster, by Charlie Jane Anders, is a very contemporary novel, but with magic in. And disasters too, I'm afraid. Both parts of Anders' title are significant.
The magic is subtle, reminding me strongly of Jo Walton's Among Others and its "frustratingly realistic sort of magic that hides itself in details"—which I suspect is no coincidence, since it was Anders' own review of Walton's novel that sealed the deal for me on that one back in 2011.
The magic that hides among those everyday details is a huge part of Jamie's life, but it's a part she's kept carefully hidden, a part that—as Lessons in Magic and Disaster begins—Jamie's decided she must finally expose to her widowed mother Serena, for her mom's own stagnating sake.
But then... there's the other part of that title.
And while a lot of the disasters are just (waves arms around wildly) all of this—as I said, this is a contemporary novel, published in late 2025, and a lot of what's going on right now really is pretty disastrous—some of this novel's lessons in disaster are direct consequences of Jamie's own decisions: specifically, the one to come clean with her mom, and the one to continue hiding the magic from Jamie's own love, Ro.
The people in Lessons in Magic and Disaster talk a lot about their relationships, both to themselves and to each other. It's almost as if Charlie Jane Anders herself believes in openness, and sharing, and talking things out with the ones you love. Go figure.
But there's room for quiet as well:
I thought this passage was especially wise, too—especially since I am also one who is given to giving people space, perhaps too much and too often:
There's a whole lot more to this novel than the fragments I'm mentioning here, too. Jamie's obsession with 18th-Century literature written by women isn't just a dissertation topic, for example; it's integrally tied to her own ongoing lessons in magic, and disaster. In Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders has written a book-length love letter to books.
And to love.
And I can heartily endorse both of these things as well.
Rec. for: Diana C., in particular, but also for families, found and otherwise
Lessons in Magic and Disaster, by Charlie Jane Anders, is a very contemporary novel, but with magic in. And disasters too, I'm afraid. Both parts of Anders' title are significant.
The magic is subtle, reminding me strongly of Jo Walton's Among Others and its "frustratingly realistic sort of magic that hides itself in details"—which I suspect is no coincidence, since it was Anders' own review of Walton's novel that sealed the deal for me on that one back in 2011.
The magic that hides among those everyday details is a huge part of Jamie's life, but it's a part she's kept carefully hidden, a part that—as Lessons in Magic and Disaster begins—Jamie's decided she must finally expose to her widowed mother Serena, for her mom's own stagnating sake.
But then... there's the other part of that title.
"Progress always brings a backlash," Serena said. "It's like physics."
"It doesn't feel like a backlash," Mae muttered. "It feels like the same shit forever."
—p.44
And while a lot of the disasters are just (waves arms around wildly) all of this—as I said, this is a contemporary novel, published in late 2025, and a lot of what's going on right now really is pretty disastrous—some of this novel's lessons in disaster are direct consequences of Jamie's own decisions: specifically, the one to come clean with her mom, and the one to continue hiding the magic from Jamie's own love, Ro.
Ro became especially unsettled—their version of "pissed" most of the time—by the notion that their relationship with a flaky trans woman was motivated by a wish to mortify their mother and father, rather than just because Jamie is a clever flower (their words).
We so often talk about "chosen family" as if it's the lack of choice that's the problem. Maybe instead of trying to replicate familial structures, especially that of the nuclear family, we could find something new, a paradigm that allows us to cherish each other without staking any claims—something with room for more people, and many types of relationships at play.
—pp.71-72
The people in Lessons in Magic and Disaster talk a lot about their relationships, both to themselves and to each other. It's almost as if Charlie Jane Anders herself believes in openness, and sharing, and talking things out with the ones you love. Go figure.
But there's room for quiet as well:
She'd always thought of herself as someone who knew how to ask the right questions, but now she was realizing her best skill could be creating fertile silences. Food for thought.
—Serena, p.165
I thought this passage was especially wise, too—especially since I am also one who is given to giving people space, perhaps too much and too often:
"Giving" someone "space" sounds like a gentle process, a forbearance. You are bestowing a gift of your absence, yet staying available in case you're suddenly needed or wanted.
The actual process of leaving a loved one to their own devices for an indefinite period is a violent struggle against habit. You cannot resist all of your deepest-seated impulses that clamor for you to reach out to the one who always made sense of a host of nightmares, and you don't want to excise your favorite human from your life completely, for fear this separation might become permanent.
—p.166
There's a whole lot more to this novel than the fragments I'm mentioning here, too. Jamie's obsession with 18th-Century literature written by women isn't just a dissertation topic, for example; it's integrally tied to her own ongoing lessons in magic, and disaster. In Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders has written a book-length love letter to books.
And to love.
And I can heartily endorse both of these things as well.
April 18, 2025
I received this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. From the description I thought it was going to be an exciting book to read. It was not!!!! I understand what the author was trying to do. It's a good concept for a plot. However the extra extra amounts of filler in the book takes away from the plot entirely. The execution of the writing was all wrong, left a complete desire for more. There seems to be more filler than actual story which bored me to death. The writing did not capture, did not keep you there, and a desire to just be done with it. Good attempt it needs honed a lot more. The main character Jamie is worried about her mother Serena. After Serena loses her life partner to death, she becomes a complete shut-in and gives up on the world to complete depression. Jamie as a last resort tries to show her the little bit of magic she has and tries to show her mom how to do it. Jamie only actually knows how to do one thing magical. Nothing else. Serena tries to do the magic alone and causes complete chaos in her life. You may have a different opinion than mine. Give it a try and see what you think.
August 20, 2025
Unexpectedly healing and wholesome, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is queer, witchy, and compassionate in just the right amounts. Anders manages to acknowledge the effects of intergenerational trauma while at the same time holding characters to account for their individual bullshit. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Tor in exchange for a review.
Jamie is a graduate student writing her thesis on a fictional novel (Emily) by a real eighteenth-century novelist (Sarah Fielding). She’s also trans and, technically, a witch—though that last label becoming more identity than hobby is a concern of hers throughout the book. In any case, Jamie decides to teach her mother, Serena, the rudiments of magic. She hopes this can help Serena, who has been mired in grief over the death of her partner and Jamie’s other mother, Mae, for years. Jamie is successful—maybe too successful—and even as this newfound craft brings mother and daughter closer together, it starts to wreak havoc on Jamie’s own romantic life. Meanwhile, budget cuts at her college and a transphobic activist both threaten to throw her academic life into disarray. Jamie’s not having a good year … how much of it is her own doing?
I really enjoyed the pacing of this book. Anders keeps the plot moving and has enough mysteries in the air to sustain interest. Just as I’m getting bored with Jamie/Serena, there’s Jamie/Ro drama, literary sleuthing drama, or a flashback chapter to Serena/Mae/kid Jamie. (Indeed, these flashbacks are dope in their own right, and I would welcome a prequel novel or novella about Serena and Mae, kind of like Concrete Rose , should Anders ever deign to write it.) All of these subplots and relationships are important and interesting in their own right, and Anders synthesizes them into an important and interesting novel.
Jamie and Serena’s tumultuous relationship looks like it’s the backbone of the story with the way Anders introduces it right off the hop. However, I would argue that Jamie and Ro are more significant. Her mother is an important part of her life, yet her relationship with Ro is (as Jamie herself notes) a significant source of stability. When Jamie’s magic use creates problems, it upends Jamie’s entire life. I really like how Anders models an affirming, enthusiastic relationship that includes some kinky sex and then shows how even these relationships can run aground if one or both partners makes mistakes. Jamie is far from a bad person, yet Ro’s objections to her behaviour are totally valid. Watching the two of them work out these issues is painful and uncomfortable yet so necessary.
Jamie’s own mistakes, especially regarding Ro, are the heart of this book and the most important conflict—far more so than anything McAllister Bushwick can conjure up. But I’m not surprised either. Jamie’s transness is an important and fundamental part of her character, yet it isn’t that important to the plot. Lessons in Magic and Disaster is notable in this way for featuring a trans protagonist who has happily transitioned, experiences some transphobia, yet for whom transition and being trans is not the focus of the story. Similarly, the fact that Jamie can fuck up in these little yet big (from her point of view) ways is important too; trans protagonists deserve to be just as flawed and messy as cis protagonists. Finally, I just want to note that I really love how Anders deals with talking about pretransition Jamie in the flashback chapters (by censoring Jamie’s deadname, similar to how eighteenth-century novelists would, and always using she/her pronouns retroactively). Maybe it isn’t surprising that Anders, as a trans woman, would approach this matter sensitively, yet I still want to laud it as much as I would a cis author doing so.
I also really like how Anders portrays magic in this book. Just as Jamie finds herself drawn to liminal spaces to perform spells, magic itself is a liminal creature herein. I can’t speak for readers who actually believe in or practise magic themselves, but as a naïve reader it feels like a respectful way to explore ideas around magic use without committing too hard to depicting any actual systems or rituals of magic. This freedom allows Anders instead to explore its connections to relationality overall.
The same goes for the fictional novel she has conjured up—again, I would love to read the full text of Emily if Anders ever wanted to write it! Reading about Jamie’s intense, sometimes dramatic search for information about Sarah and Jane and this novel stoked my latent love of classical English literature (though I must confess I am more of an early nineteenth-century lass myself: George Eliot foreva!). Although I never seriously entertained a career in academia, had I pursued one, perhaps I would be like Jamie in my zeal. Her obsession not just with Emily but with learning more about Sarah and Jane’s world and how women of their time experienced it is nothing short of infectious.
Above all else, though, what will stick with me from this novel is just how doggedly Anders pursues the idea of dealing with trauma. She accurately captures how trauma comes at us from various angles and sources. Some if it is passed down from parent to child, as we see through the flashbacks where Serena and Mae’s struggles imprint themselves on Jamie. Some of it comes to us from social forces, like transphobia and other oppression. Some of it comes from the consequences of our own mistakes. In this novel, Anders makes it clear that everyone should be accountable for those mistakes—Jamie in particular, but Serena also—yet, in the same vein, those mistakes do not render you unlovable, unworthy. It’s this compassion, so deeply baked into every sentence and paragraph, that makes this novel truly memorable. So many of us queer folx carry a lot of trauma, and even those of us lucky enough to escape a lot of personal traumatic experiences are part of a wider collective of trauma stretching back across decades of oppression and hatred. Anders needles around the edges of these ideas, both in the flashback chapters and in Jamie’s own encounters with transphobes and right-wing zealots (I loved and simultaneously despised the nihilistic gleefulness of Gavin … too real, Charlie Jane, too real). I didn’t expect the inclusion of these ideas to hit me as hard as it did, yet in retrospect, I am so grateful she explores them.
Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a complex and careful book full of interlocking ideas and credible characters. I’ve vacillated on whether to rate it four stars or five. Maybe I’m being too harsh by going with four stars, so I hope you don’t take that as a sign that this book is in any way wanting. If anything about its description or my review has you nodding along and interested, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.
Jamie is a graduate student writing her thesis on a fictional novel (Emily) by a real eighteenth-century novelist (Sarah Fielding). She’s also trans and, technically, a witch—though that last label becoming more identity than hobby is a concern of hers throughout the book. In any case, Jamie decides to teach her mother, Serena, the rudiments of magic. She hopes this can help Serena, who has been mired in grief over the death of her partner and Jamie’s other mother, Mae, for years. Jamie is successful—maybe too successful—and even as this newfound craft brings mother and daughter closer together, it starts to wreak havoc on Jamie’s own romantic life. Meanwhile, budget cuts at her college and a transphobic activist both threaten to throw her academic life into disarray. Jamie’s not having a good year … how much of it is her own doing?
I really enjoyed the pacing of this book. Anders keeps the plot moving and has enough mysteries in the air to sustain interest. Just as I’m getting bored with Jamie/Serena, there’s Jamie/Ro drama, literary sleuthing drama, or a flashback chapter to Serena/Mae/kid Jamie. (Indeed, these flashbacks are dope in their own right, and I would welcome a prequel novel or novella about Serena and Mae, kind of like Concrete Rose , should Anders ever deign to write it.) All of these subplots and relationships are important and interesting in their own right, and Anders synthesizes them into an important and interesting novel.
Jamie and Serena’s tumultuous relationship looks like it’s the backbone of the story with the way Anders introduces it right off the hop. However, I would argue that Jamie and Ro are more significant. Her mother is an important part of her life, yet her relationship with Ro is (as Jamie herself notes) a significant source of stability. When Jamie’s magic use creates problems, it upends Jamie’s entire life. I really like how Anders models an affirming, enthusiastic relationship that includes some kinky sex and then shows how even these relationships can run aground if one or both partners makes mistakes. Jamie is far from a bad person, yet Ro’s objections to her behaviour are totally valid. Watching the two of them work out these issues is painful and uncomfortable yet so necessary.
Jamie’s own mistakes, especially regarding Ro, are the heart of this book and the most important conflict—far more so than anything McAllister Bushwick can conjure up. But I’m not surprised either. Jamie’s transness is an important and fundamental part of her character, yet it isn’t that important to the plot. Lessons in Magic and Disaster is notable in this way for featuring a trans protagonist who has happily transitioned, experiences some transphobia, yet for whom transition and being trans is not the focus of the story. Similarly, the fact that Jamie can fuck up in these little yet big (from her point of view) ways is important too; trans protagonists deserve to be just as flawed and messy as cis protagonists. Finally, I just want to note that I really love how Anders deals with talking about pretransition Jamie in the flashback chapters (by censoring Jamie’s deadname, similar to how eighteenth-century novelists would, and always using she/her pronouns retroactively). Maybe it isn’t surprising that Anders, as a trans woman, would approach this matter sensitively, yet I still want to laud it as much as I would a cis author doing so.
I also really like how Anders portrays magic in this book. Just as Jamie finds herself drawn to liminal spaces to perform spells, magic itself is a liminal creature herein. I can’t speak for readers who actually believe in or practise magic themselves, but as a naïve reader it feels like a respectful way to explore ideas around magic use without committing too hard to depicting any actual systems or rituals of magic. This freedom allows Anders instead to explore its connections to relationality overall.
The same goes for the fictional novel she has conjured up—again, I would love to read the full text of Emily if Anders ever wanted to write it! Reading about Jamie’s intense, sometimes dramatic search for information about Sarah and Jane and this novel stoked my latent love of classical English literature (though I must confess I am more of an early nineteenth-century lass myself: George Eliot foreva!). Although I never seriously entertained a career in academia, had I pursued one, perhaps I would be like Jamie in my zeal. Her obsession not just with Emily but with learning more about Sarah and Jane’s world and how women of their time experienced it is nothing short of infectious.
Above all else, though, what will stick with me from this novel is just how doggedly Anders pursues the idea of dealing with trauma. She accurately captures how trauma comes at us from various angles and sources. Some if it is passed down from parent to child, as we see through the flashbacks where Serena and Mae’s struggles imprint themselves on Jamie. Some of it comes to us from social forces, like transphobia and other oppression. Some of it comes from the consequences of our own mistakes. In this novel, Anders makes it clear that everyone should be accountable for those mistakes—Jamie in particular, but Serena also—yet, in the same vein, those mistakes do not render you unlovable, unworthy. It’s this compassion, so deeply baked into every sentence and paragraph, that makes this novel truly memorable. So many of us queer folx carry a lot of trauma, and even those of us lucky enough to escape a lot of personal traumatic experiences are part of a wider collective of trauma stretching back across decades of oppression and hatred. Anders needles around the edges of these ideas, both in the flashback chapters and in Jamie’s own encounters with transphobes and right-wing zealots (I loved and simultaneously despised the nihilistic gleefulness of Gavin … too real, Charlie Jane, too real). I didn’t expect the inclusion of these ideas to hit me as hard as it did, yet in retrospect, I am so grateful she explores them.
Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a complex and careful book full of interlocking ideas and credible characters. I’ve vacillated on whether to rate it four stars or five. Maybe I’m being too harsh by going with four stars, so I hope you don’t take that as a sign that this book is in any way wanting. If anything about its description or my review has you nodding along and interested, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.
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February 27, 2025Charlie Jane Anders on the book...
"Also, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is the gayest thing I’ve ever written. Pretty much all of the characters are queer, and it traces the fight for LGBTQIA+ liberation from the 1730s to the 1990s to the present. There are protests against gay-bashing and transphobia. We see the trans and queer community coming together to shelter and uplift vulnerable people. It’s joyously, defiantly queer in a way that feels like a bigger deal now than when I wrote it.
At the same time, I’ve had a lot of conversations about how this really feels like the kind of gentle, friendly book that your mom’s book club could absolutely enjoy"
https://buttondown.com/charliejane/ar...
"Also, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is the gayest thing I’ve ever written. Pretty much all of the characters are queer, and it traces the fight for LGBTQIA+ liberation from the 1730s to the 1990s to the present. There are protests against gay-bashing and transphobia. We see the trans and queer community coming together to shelter and uplift vulnerable people. It’s joyously, defiantly queer in a way that feels like a bigger deal now than when I wrote it.
At the same time, I’ve had a lot of conversations about how this really feels like the kind of gentle, friendly book that your mom’s book club could absolutely enjoy"
https://buttondown.com/charliejane/ar...
September 15, 2025
4.5 stars
I loved this! Told in dual timelines this is a family drama about navigating relationships more than anything else. The magic use is only lightly on display and in that sense incidental to the main story rather than central, but it is the catalysing element that brings parent and child together as they navigate grief, anger, insecurity, and most of all the ties of love that bind them together.
It’s similar to the novel Practical Magic (not the film!) but definitely grittier and a whole lot more queer. It might be too frank for some people, but the frankness is part of what makes this book so wholly genuine in its obvious wish for a more peaceful and tolerant world.
On a personal note, I’m glad Anders wrote this book. It has some timely and important things to say, and there were parts that spoke to me as the parent of a trans person, putting into words some of the fears I have about what they will have to face in the future.
”Giving” someone “space” sounds like a gentle process, a forbearance. You are bestowing a gift of your absence, yet staying available in case you're suddenly needed or wanted.
The actual process of leaving a loved one to their own devices for an indefinite period is a violent struggle against habit. You cannot resist all of your deepest-seated impulses that clamor for you to reach out to the one who always made sense of a host of nightmares, and you don't want to excise your favorite human from your life completely, for fear this separation might become permanent.
I loved this! Told in dual timelines this is a family drama about navigating relationships more than anything else. The magic use is only lightly on display and in that sense incidental to the main story rather than central, but it is the catalysing element that brings parent and child together as they navigate grief, anger, insecurity, and most of all the ties of love that bind them together.
It’s similar to the novel Practical Magic (not the film!) but definitely grittier and a whole lot more queer. It might be too frank for some people, but the frankness is part of what makes this book so wholly genuine in its obvious wish for a more peaceful and tolerant world.
On a personal note, I’m glad Anders wrote this book. It has some timely and important things to say, and there were parts that spoke to me as the parent of a trans person, putting into words some of the fears I have about what they will have to face in the future.
”Giving” someone “space” sounds like a gentle process, a forbearance. You are bestowing a gift of your absence, yet staying available in case you're suddenly needed or wanted.
The actual process of leaving a loved one to their own devices for an indefinite period is a violent struggle against habit. You cannot resist all of your deepest-seated impulses that clamor for you to reach out to the one who always made sense of a host of nightmares, and you don't want to excise your favorite human from your life completely, for fear this separation might become permanent.
January 6, 2026
5 Stars
I admit the meshing of a 1700s novel with the present-day story annoyed me a bit at the beginning because it didn’t seem to correlate at all. However, as I got deeper into the narrative, it slowly (sort of) began to make sense, only becoming truly obvious to me toward the end. By then, it made perfect sense—although I would have continued reading the book despite this minor annoyance, as the plot was highly addictive: magic, a present-day setting, and normal, everyday characters who were partly queer.
The verbiage used in the novel was apt, given that the characters were mostly academics. The author’s skill in distinguishing one character from another was executed perfectly. In addition, the navigation of relationships—from lesbian feminists to mothers, social justice warriors, widow, and more—was expertly portrayed. I adored the messiness of the interrelationships between the characters because it made them feel more real and relatable.
The magic aspect was the icing on the cake. It was vague and unrestricted by rigid rules or strict rituals, which, again, made it feel more relatable.
I enjoyed this book so much. It highlights the continuous struggle of women against the patriarchy and oppression in many aspects of life.
I admit the meshing of a 1700s novel with the present-day story annoyed me a bit at the beginning because it didn’t seem to correlate at all. However, as I got deeper into the narrative, it slowly (sort of) began to make sense, only becoming truly obvious to me toward the end. By then, it made perfect sense—although I would have continued reading the book despite this minor annoyance, as the plot was highly addictive: magic, a present-day setting, and normal, everyday characters who were partly queer.
The verbiage used in the novel was apt, given that the characters were mostly academics. The author’s skill in distinguishing one character from another was executed perfectly. In addition, the navigation of relationships—from lesbian feminists to mothers, social justice warriors, widow, and more—was expertly portrayed. I adored the messiness of the interrelationships between the characters because it made them feel more real and relatable.
The magic aspect was the icing on the cake. It was vague and unrestricted by rigid rules or strict rituals, which, again, made it feel more relatable.
I enjoyed this book so much. It highlights the continuous struggle of women against the patriarchy and oppression in many aspects of life.
September 6, 2025
This book is kind of an enigma, because it's both very me (queer, Boston, academia, multiple timelines and vaguely multimedia), and contains some of my biggest pet peeves (intensely situated in the current moment, and intensely therapized). I did enjoy the first half more than the second--in which I spent a lot of time thinking that no one in the history of relationships has ever reacted this way to their marriage possibly ending--but overall, I still really liked it. I found Jamie's struggles with her grieving mother very relatable, and I'm a sucker for a character with a niche and obsessive academic interest, as well as for characters who talk like they've swallowed several textbooks. (Your mileage may vary in regards to how pretentious you find this.)
If you read for escapism, give this a pass, but if you want some nerdy, queer, high-stakes but somehow still comforting witchcraft, give it a try.
If you read for escapism, give this a pass, but if you want some nerdy, queer, high-stakes but somehow still comforting witchcraft, give it a try.
June 12, 2025
Finally giving up on this after 200 pages of nothing happening. 200 pages of the main character just… thinking about things. It’s boring and patronizing and insufferably White Queer. The sex scenes were so goofy they almost felt like satire. Would not recommend.
August 31, 2025
I think this is one that a lot of people are going to love, it unfortunately just didn't quite work for me. This is really a book about healing, grief, trauma and compassion, and it was done very well - I just never connected with the characters, and I also struggled with the worldbuilding/magic system. i think the witchy magic felt too chaotic for the depths of this story, and it ended up overshadowing the message for me.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!
September 9, 2025
I ended up enjoying this one quite a bit. I had gone in thinking the magical aspects were perhaps going to be a bit different than what they were, but by the end of it I enjoyed the version that we got. I really ended up loving the Serena/Mae chapters back when Jamie was a kid. Around the 100 page-ish mark, I felt like I wanted the plot and pacing to pick up a bit, and I do feel like it did just about when I needed it too, though it’s good to know going in this isn’t a fast moving plot arc and definitely more of a slower character study of this mother and daughter. I personally, couldn’t really get into the snippets of the older book that Jamie is researching; but that is absolutely a me and classics have a hard time thing that I’m still working on lol. Ro… idk, I never really connected with them as a character. I think the way they spoke would drive me bonkers in real life and while I get that what they went through was traumatic, I personally, felt like the way they reacted felt somewhat overblown. But hey, we would be very different ppl if they were a real person, so that’s just me. This was my first novel by this author, but it def won’t be my last, I found myself underlining a lot of quotes from this with really beautiful language and writing. I def rec it!
July 28, 2025
Unfortunately, this writing style just isn’t for me and I had to stop reading it about 10% in. There is a lot of inner monologue and not a lot of dialogue. It felt like it jumped all over the place. And while I appreciate the concept of magic as something you do but don’t think about, working the first two chapters, this is said about a dozen times and it just became too repetitive for me. It became a show me, don’t tell me situation.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for this ARC!
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for this ARC!
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November 19, 2025This is one of Book Riot’s Best Books of 2025:
This book was such a balm this year with themes of family, community, and love, but mostly Anders’s remarkable ability to make readers believe that magic and healing are within reach for all of us. Jamie is a grad student in New England who is incredibly stressed as she tries to nail down a dissertation that continues to slip through her fingers. Adding to her stress is her relationship with her mother Serena, who has been grieving the loss of her wife and living as a hermit in an old schoolhouse for years. Jamie is also a witch and decides that teaching her mother magic is a great idea to reconnect, yet this goes sideways quickly.
- Patricia Elzie-Tuttle
This book was such a balm this year with themes of family, community, and love, but mostly Anders’s remarkable ability to make readers believe that magic and healing are within reach for all of us. Jamie is a grad student in New England who is incredibly stressed as she tries to nail down a dissertation that continues to slip through her fingers. Adding to her stress is her relationship with her mother Serena, who has been grieving the loss of her wife and living as a hermit in an old schoolhouse for years. Jamie is also a witch and decides that teaching her mother magic is a great idea to reconnect, yet this goes sideways quickly.
- Patricia Elzie-Tuttle
August 8, 2026
DNF’d at 25%. I could handle the lesbian relationship (s). I could handle the transgender main character. I was less fond of the really muddled explanation of Jamie performing g her magic.
I had to quit at the S&M.
I had to quit at the S&M.
June 11, 2025
I've long been a fan of Charlie Jane Anders' work, and this novel is exactly what I needed it to be.
Jamie is a literature grad student in the Boston/Cambridge area, working on the 18th century novel. Jamie and her mom, Serena, are both grieving the death of Serena's wife Mae. Serena's grief is devastating, and Jamie decides to teach Serena about doing magic as a way to try to bring Serena back to focusing on the present.
This... does not go well (hence the title).
The story bounces back and forth between the present, the 1990s when Serena and Mae were younger, and the 18th century works that Jamie is studying. Found family and the challenges of building community when things are hard are front and center, as it's a predominantly queer cast of characters.
Heartfelt and heart-wrenching in the best ways, this novel is about grief and belonging, recovery, healing, and love. Even when you aren't exactly perfect. It is full of messy but well-meaning people trying their best, screwing up, and figuring out how to do better and move forward, even when it hurts. *Especially* when it hurts. Because the space between surviving and living is huge, and the best way to fill it in is with people who love and accept you for you.
Because it turns out that there's no way to make grief *not* hurt, even with magic. The fact that it hurts is proof that the grief comes from love, and leaning into that love is the way to keep living.
Highly recommended, like the most comforting of hugs from a loved one at a difficult time.
Jamie is a literature grad student in the Boston/Cambridge area, working on the 18th century novel. Jamie and her mom, Serena, are both grieving the death of Serena's wife Mae. Serena's grief is devastating, and Jamie decides to teach Serena about doing magic as a way to try to bring Serena back to focusing on the present.
This... does not go well (hence the title).
The story bounces back and forth between the present, the 1990s when Serena and Mae were younger, and the 18th century works that Jamie is studying. Found family and the challenges of building community when things are hard are front and center, as it's a predominantly queer cast of characters.
Heartfelt and heart-wrenching in the best ways, this novel is about grief and belonging, recovery, healing, and love. Even when you aren't exactly perfect. It is full of messy but well-meaning people trying their best, screwing up, and figuring out how to do better and move forward, even when it hurts. *Especially* when it hurts. Because the space between surviving and living is huge, and the best way to fill it in is with people who love and accept you for you.
Because it turns out that there's no way to make grief *not* hurt, even with magic. The fact that it hurts is proof that the grief comes from love, and leaning into that love is the way to keep living.
Highly recommended, like the most comforting of hugs from a loved one at a difficult time.
June 11, 2026
this book shines in its beautiful, layered portrait of grief, intimacy, community and resistance. I’ll admit though that the infodumps on 18th century literature did detract from my enjoyment.
September 29, 2025
short synopsis: the true enemy is the unprocessed grief within
this was such a lovely, queer as fuck, and emotional story about a graduate school student/teaching fellow and her mother trying to reconnect by sharing and doing magic, with disasterous results.
i really loved how the author never deadnamed Jamie and Jamie being trans was not the focal point of this story. This story was about love and loss, about the power of our intentions, and that change and growth can only come from within.
a bit cerebral for me (and I never really enjoy the "fake" novels/story chapter starts as much as some, but overall highly recommended especially for the Fall reading season.
Listening to this took me some time to get into, as third present felt slightly odd. The narrators were all superb though so tense issues soon became a non-issue once the story caught me up.
thank you to the publisher for the eARC & eALC; reviewed professionally for Audiofile.
this was such a lovely, queer as fuck, and emotional story about a graduate school student/teaching fellow and her mother trying to reconnect by sharing and doing magic, with disasterous results.
i really loved how the author never deadnamed Jamie and Jamie being trans was not the focal point of this story. This story was about love and loss, about the power of our intentions, and that change and growth can only come from within.
a bit cerebral for me (and I never really enjoy the "fake" novels/story chapter starts as much as some, but overall highly recommended especially for the Fall reading season.
Listening to this took me some time to get into, as third present felt slightly odd. The narrators were all superb though so tense issues soon became a non-issue once the story caught me up.
thank you to the publisher for the eARC & eALC; reviewed professionally for Audiofile.
April 6, 2025
"Lessons in Magic and Disaster" is a book that is practically tailor-made for my reading tastes; it was just about perfect in almost every way. I felt privileged to be a part of the ARC team for this beautiful, thoughtful book.
Jamie is a grad student working on her dissertation about 18th-century literature, with a focus on women writers of the time who may or may not have been queer. She's also helping out her mother, with whom she's had a fraught relationship. I was a little thrown at first by referencing her mother by her first name but it worked with their complicated relationship and the structure of the points of view.
Serena is unmoored from losing the love of her life, Mae, the glue that held their loving queer family together. Jamie tries to help her process her grief by teaching her magic. She's a trans witch, a powerful one at that, but she has always worked in secret, finding places in the wilderness between the modern and the primeval to do her workings. But her mother, filled with rage and a need for revenge, soon taps into a malevolent source as Jamie faces a targeted, transphobic harassment campaign over her work as a student teacher.
Along the way Jamie's relationship with her nonbinary partner Ro (named after Ro Laren! squee!) takes a hit as the secrets she's kept from everyone she loves come to roost.
The story is told from Jamie's point of view, then back story from Serena's point of view as she reminisces about the love story between her and Mae, then bounces into nerdy tangents from the POVs of the 18th century women writers. I liked this structure although sometimes Serena/Mae and Jamie/Ro sounded similar and the 18th century lit excerpts could be clunky to read.
This felt like a very personal book for the author and I appreciated that she really put her heart and soul into these characters. If you can only read trans characters in queernormative worlds where the stakes are low for them, this isn't the book for you. There was plenty of discrimination and misgendering, and I liked how it showed both queer folks and witches finding solidarity, community and accountability against the hate. A very relevant and essential book.
I also loved how the characters were complex people, sometimes very unlikable, but I always understood their motivations. This was an incredibly queer book but I loved how it showed queer love and queer family dynamics without being a romance. This is life after the HEA when things get messy.
This book really spoke to me personally and I saw myself in these characters. It will stay with me for a very long time and was a meaningful, impactful read for me. Reading this was therapeutic in a way, and I laughed, cried and felt touched by the nerdiness and depth of each character.
Heartfelt thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Jamie is a grad student working on her dissertation about 18th-century literature, with a focus on women writers of the time who may or may not have been queer. She's also helping out her mother, with whom she's had a fraught relationship. I was a little thrown at first by referencing her mother by her first name but it worked with their complicated relationship and the structure of the points of view.
Serena is unmoored from losing the love of her life, Mae, the glue that held their loving queer family together. Jamie tries to help her process her grief by teaching her magic. She's a trans witch, a powerful one at that, but she has always worked in secret, finding places in the wilderness between the modern and the primeval to do her workings. But her mother, filled with rage and a need for revenge, soon taps into a malevolent source as Jamie faces a targeted, transphobic harassment campaign over her work as a student teacher.
Along the way Jamie's relationship with her nonbinary partner Ro (named after Ro Laren! squee!) takes a hit as the secrets she's kept from everyone she loves come to roost.
The story is told from Jamie's point of view, then back story from Serena's point of view as she reminisces about the love story between her and Mae, then bounces into nerdy tangents from the POVs of the 18th century women writers. I liked this structure although sometimes Serena/Mae and Jamie/Ro sounded similar and the 18th century lit excerpts could be clunky to read.
This felt like a very personal book for the author and I appreciated that she really put her heart and soul into these characters. If you can only read trans characters in queernormative worlds where the stakes are low for them, this isn't the book for you. There was plenty of discrimination and misgendering, and I liked how it showed both queer folks and witches finding solidarity, community and accountability against the hate. A very relevant and essential book.
I also loved how the characters were complex people, sometimes very unlikable, but I always understood their motivations. This was an incredibly queer book but I loved how it showed queer love and queer family dynamics without being a romance. This is life after the HEA when things get messy.
This book really spoke to me personally and I saw myself in these characters. It will stay with me for a very long time and was a meaningful, impactful read for me. Reading this was therapeutic in a way, and I laughed, cried and felt touched by the nerdiness and depth of each character.
Heartfelt thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
September 8, 2025
I had the pleasure of meeting Charlie Jane last week to talk about her amazing new book, which is like a warm hug and an ode to connection. It’s marginally about magic and witches, but that’s just a springboard for her very intelligent and witty characters - representing every letter of the LGBTQIA+ alphabet- to play.
July 19, 2025
Got an arc from work
So I’ve only read one book by CJA that wasn’t for me in a way that was entirely not the book’s fault. This one sounded interesting though so when an arc came in I picked it up, and while it does deal with some stuff that gives me the heebie jeebies (I don’t do well with Cancer storylines but this was only detailed in one chapter) I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed this!
It’s clear there’s a reason Anders sweeps at award shows, she has a great narrative voice that makes you feel like you’re listening to a fairy tale and also catching up with an old friend over coffee and I love that! This one is funny and bittersweet and so delightfully queer and I’m really glad that I gave it a chance.
It’s also very much a love letter to books and storytelling. I took a class on 18th century British novels in college and while I still maintain that Moll Flanders gave me adhd, this book made me feel so smart because I’d read the books being talked about and understood the references being made in a way that really added to the story!
So yeah, I enjoyed this a lot and if you’ll excuse me I need to go call my mom
So I’ve only read one book by CJA that wasn’t for me in a way that was entirely not the book’s fault. This one sounded interesting though so when an arc came in I picked it up, and while it does deal with some stuff that gives me the heebie jeebies (I don’t do well with Cancer storylines but this was only detailed in one chapter) I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed this!
It’s clear there’s a reason Anders sweeps at award shows, she has a great narrative voice that makes you feel like you’re listening to a fairy tale and also catching up with an old friend over coffee and I love that! This one is funny and bittersweet and so delightfully queer and I’m really glad that I gave it a chance.
It’s also very much a love letter to books and storytelling. I took a class on 18th century British novels in college and while I still maintain that Moll Flanders gave me adhd, this book made me feel so smart because I’d read the books being talked about and understood the references being made in a way that really added to the story!
So yeah, I enjoyed this a lot and if you’ll excuse me I need to go call my mom
July 11, 2025
Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a novel about a trans witch who teaches her mother magic, only to find that magic might not always be the answer. Jamie is a trans woman, graduate student, and a witch, and she wants to do something to get her mother, Serena, back out into the world, as Serena's been hiding away since the death of her wife. Jamie teaches her mother the magic she's been using for years, all about exchanging something for what you most want, but Serena finds this magic a powerful force, and suddenly all elements of Jamie's life are affected: her relationship with her mother, her marriage to Ro, her reputation at the college she works at.
I was drawn to this novel as I wanted to read a book by Charlie Jane Anders, and even though I'm not a huge fantasy person unless the fantasy is combined with more literary or general fiction, the selling point of the book being about a trans woman witch was enough for me to give it a go. Conveniently for me, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is not just a story about magic, and it is the kind of fantasy that is set in the real world except a few people can do magic, which is what I was hoping for.
The book is told both in the present day from Jamie's perspective, and also in the past telling the story of her mothers, Serena and Mae. The present day narrative explores the magic side, and also Jamie's research into a (fictional) eighteenth century novel and what it says about the real life historical women involved in it, whilst the story of Jamie's mothers is more around queer community, sacrifice, and what makes a relationship. Sometimes this structure, particularly the chunks from the fictional eighteenth century novel and a fairytale story within its narrative, makes the book feel a bit slow-going, as it takes a while to get to the next bit of a plotline. However, the layered approach allows there to be a lot of things in conversation with each other.
The characters are flawed and messy, though I think some of the moral dilemmas and questions could've been more deeply explored as there's some interesting stuff around trust and sacrifice and coping with things that gets reduced to characters taking in a "therapy-speak" style. There's an online abuse/cancel culture plotline that again doesn't quite get enough space to have nuance, and Jamie's academic work (both research and her teaching/position at the college) always felt a bit pushed to the side even though there were so many chunks of the fake novel. I did like a lot of the character relationships, including Jamie and Ro's marriage that hits tension when Ro finds out about the magic, and what we see of Jamie's relationship with her dead mother, Mae.
Overall, I like how ambitious this novel is in combining the magic side with a tale of eighteenth century writer women and a look at queer community, whilst at its heart, having a story about a trans women and her relationships with other people in her life. At times I found it a bit slow and frustrating, but I found the ending powerful in terms of the character relationships and I think this book will be great for fans of queer fantasy with a literary edge.
I was drawn to this novel as I wanted to read a book by Charlie Jane Anders, and even though I'm not a huge fantasy person unless the fantasy is combined with more literary or general fiction, the selling point of the book being about a trans woman witch was enough for me to give it a go. Conveniently for me, Lessons in Magic and Disaster is not just a story about magic, and it is the kind of fantasy that is set in the real world except a few people can do magic, which is what I was hoping for.
The book is told both in the present day from Jamie's perspective, and also in the past telling the story of her mothers, Serena and Mae. The present day narrative explores the magic side, and also Jamie's research into a (fictional) eighteenth century novel and what it says about the real life historical women involved in it, whilst the story of Jamie's mothers is more around queer community, sacrifice, and what makes a relationship. Sometimes this structure, particularly the chunks from the fictional eighteenth century novel and a fairytale story within its narrative, makes the book feel a bit slow-going, as it takes a while to get to the next bit of a plotline. However, the layered approach allows there to be a lot of things in conversation with each other.
The characters are flawed and messy, though I think some of the moral dilemmas and questions could've been more deeply explored as there's some interesting stuff around trust and sacrifice and coping with things that gets reduced to characters taking in a "therapy-speak" style. There's an online abuse/cancel culture plotline that again doesn't quite get enough space to have nuance, and Jamie's academic work (both research and her teaching/position at the college) always felt a bit pushed to the side even though there were so many chunks of the fake novel. I did like a lot of the character relationships, including Jamie and Ro's marriage that hits tension when Ro finds out about the magic, and what we see of Jamie's relationship with her dead mother, Mae.
Overall, I like how ambitious this novel is in combining the magic side with a tale of eighteenth century writer women and a look at queer community, whilst at its heart, having a story about a trans women and her relationships with other people in her life. At times I found it a bit slow and frustrating, but I found the ending powerful in terms of the character relationships and I think this book will be great for fans of queer fantasy with a literary edge.
October 4, 2025
DO NOT WEAR GLOVES TO HANDLE OLD BOOKS!!
You can skip the rest of my review, but I beg you to remember this one thing. It's a common enough misconception, but the standard practice in the rare and antiquarian book community is clean, dry hands. Gloves make it hard to feel and separate individual leaves and make it more likely to rip or tear those leaves or drop books.
A simple web search would have drowned you in this simple standard, which I think speaks to the heart of my issues with this book: poor editing. This book doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, and there are entirely too many threads, entirely too finely parsed, and the result is a muddled mess.
My review in sum: just so much potential, but buried neck deep in a ball pit of colorful random muchness.
That's not to say it's bad; it's not. In fact, there are some really lovely passages and turns of phrase worthy of praise. It's rare for me to finish books I don't enjoy, and there was enough here to slog through the rest. And there really should be a new genre for books like this. Something like 'real magical realism'. Not just a world where magic exists and integrates with the known, but imagining (exploring?) how magic works in this, our, real world.
But:
The therapy-speak is intolerable. I don't think I've rolled my eyes so much. Do people actually speak this way? Maybe I'm old now at 40ish, but it's an old but valuable writing adage to show, don't tell. The constant verbal processing drowns the emotion until what should be the most moving moments become bone dry.
The effort of inclusion becomes so forced as to be performative. Someone introduces themself "my name is X, and my pronouns are they/them": groovy, totally cool. That's how I introduce myself personally and professionally (she/her). But there is absolutely no reason to do this: HER name was Delia and SHE used she/her pronouns. The second half of that sentence was completely extraneous. You literally just gave their pronoun. Show, don't tell.
And that's the heart of it. A good editor should have caught the gloves thing. A good editor would have struck all the completely unnecessary phrases. A good editor would have told the writer that they needed to focus in on the central themes and cull the rest. A good editor would have told them not to invent an 18th-century book that just happens to perfectly unify all the entirely too many themes and provide a deus ex machina for the climax of the story. It's the Mary Sue of historical literature. A McGuffin in literary form. And a good editor would have elided all the random intellectual and academic musings from a writer that cannot constrain themselves that detract from the actual story.
You can skip the rest of my review, but I beg you to remember this one thing. It's a common enough misconception, but the standard practice in the rare and antiquarian book community is clean, dry hands. Gloves make it hard to feel and separate individual leaves and make it more likely to rip or tear those leaves or drop books.
A simple web search would have drowned you in this simple standard, which I think speaks to the heart of my issues with this book: poor editing. This book doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, and there are entirely too many threads, entirely too finely parsed, and the result is a muddled mess.
My review in sum: just so much potential, but buried neck deep in a ball pit of colorful random muchness.
That's not to say it's bad; it's not. In fact, there are some really lovely passages and turns of phrase worthy of praise. It's rare for me to finish books I don't enjoy, and there was enough here to slog through the rest. And there really should be a new genre for books like this. Something like 'real magical realism'. Not just a world where magic exists and integrates with the known, but imagining (exploring?) how magic works in this, our, real world.
But:
The therapy-speak is intolerable. I don't think I've rolled my eyes so much. Do people actually speak this way? Maybe I'm old now at 40ish, but it's an old but valuable writing adage to show, don't tell. The constant verbal processing drowns the emotion until what should be the most moving moments become bone dry.
The effort of inclusion becomes so forced as to be performative. Someone introduces themself "my name is X, and my pronouns are they/them": groovy, totally cool. That's how I introduce myself personally and professionally (she/her). But there is absolutely no reason to do this: HER name was Delia and SHE used she/her pronouns. The second half of that sentence was completely extraneous. You literally just gave their pronoun. Show, don't tell.
And that's the heart of it. A good editor should have caught the gloves thing. A good editor would have struck all the completely unnecessary phrases. A good editor would have told the writer that they needed to focus in on the central themes and cull the rest. A good editor would have told them not to invent an 18th-century book that just happens to perfectly unify all the entirely too many themes and provide a deus ex machina for the climax of the story. It's the Mary Sue of historical literature. A McGuffin in literary form. And a good editor would have elided all the random intellectual and academic musings from a writer that cannot constrain themselves that detract from the actual story.
August 3, 2025
*3.5
Lessons in Magic and Disaster follows Jamie as she sets about teaching magic to her mother, Serena. Through this process, she ends up learning a lot more about the rules and the power of their magic. It also follows Jamie’s academic and married life.
Jamie and Serena are complex and compelling characters, they feel fleshed out. The flashbacks to Serena and Mae added a lot to the story; we get to know both her and her wife, Mae, along with a young Jamie and see her grow into who she is present day.
There is very little magic throughout the book, even though it is the thing that sets up most of the conflicts. We do see the use magic and learn about it along with the characters, especially at the end; but magic is used as a device for Jamie and Serena to process their grief over losing Mae, Serena’s wife and Jamie’s mom, and to reconnect with each other.
The writing is atmospheric and richly descriptive, but it felt contrived at times with some of the lingo the author uses (e.g. the frequent use of "trolling"). The constant, and frequently long, tangents into Jamie’s dissertation felt unnecessary and could have been cut short. While interesting, they took me out of the story, and there was already a lot going on.
Lessons in Magic and Disaster follows Jamie as she sets about teaching magic to her mother, Serena. Through this process, she ends up learning a lot more about the rules and the power of their magic. It also follows Jamie’s academic and married life.
Jamie and Serena are complex and compelling characters, they feel fleshed out. The flashbacks to Serena and Mae added a lot to the story; we get to know both her and her wife, Mae, along with a young Jamie and see her grow into who she is present day.
There is very little magic throughout the book, even though it is the thing that sets up most of the conflicts. We do see the use magic and learn about it along with the characters, especially at the end; but magic is used as a device for Jamie and Serena to process their grief over losing Mae, Serena’s wife and Jamie’s mom, and to reconnect with each other.
The writing is atmospheric and richly descriptive, but it felt contrived at times with some of the lingo the author uses (e.g. the frequent use of "trolling"). The constant, and frequently long, tangents into Jamie’s dissertation felt unnecessary and could have been cut short. While interesting, they took me out of the story, and there was already a lot going on.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 18, 2025
I liked this, but the mother / daughter conflicts were a little too close to home for me, and a few of the other issues the characters faced were sometimes stressful to read. The overall tone is not depressing, though, and the characters have very real growth. I learned a lot about women writers of the 1730s-40s, too, which was something I knew almost nothing about beforehand.
January 7, 2026
There's a good story about power and family and responsibility here, if you can get past the facile identity politics and 1 dimensional villains.
July 5, 2026
I was kindly gifted this book by Titan Books. My first book by this author, it is a standalone contemporary fantasy novel.
The Positives:
The blurb sounded interesting, but the cover art and colours are what really drew me in—it's stunning! The design at the start of the chapters is so cute, and the font is a nice size and style. It also features good quality writing and a third-person POV.
What I Didn't Like:
Sadly, it’s just boring. I wouldn't really call it a fantasy book; there is no world-building, and while they talk about doing spells, that's about it. There is no real mention of their magic or what they actually do until the very end of the book, which left me confused. It feels much more like Wicca. Instead, it’s just a contemporary novel about being queer, literature, growing up, and daily life.
This book just wasn't for me. I struggled to find the motivation to read it, but because I don't like to DNF books, this became the longest it’s taken me to finish a book in months! I didn't care for any of the characters, and there were too many words I didn't know. If you like literature and contemporary novels, you might enjoy this, but it is almost 450 pages long—way too long for me. Looking at the reviews, I can see why it isn't highly rated and why a lot of people DNF'ed it.
Final Thoughts:
1.5⭐ purely because I finished it and the writing itself was good, but I wouldn't recommend it.
To end on a good note, here are some quotes I really liked:
"One grief cliché that's absolutely true is that everybody deals with it in their own way. So what works for you might not work for her."
"It's okay to be scared. Sometimes fear is just a signpost to the thing you want most."
"Sometimes people will try to tell you that you're wrong because you're saying things they don't want to hear."
"Happiness does not stagnate, but rather it flows, and yes, it can be blocked or diverted, or just dry up, but we can find the source again."
"I get scared, too. But I'm not so scared when you're with me."
"Thank you. For seeing me. Whatever . . . Whatever you and I become, my life will always have a space for you in it."
The Positives:
The blurb sounded interesting, but the cover art and colours are what really drew me in—it's stunning! The design at the start of the chapters is so cute, and the font is a nice size and style. It also features good quality writing and a third-person POV.
What I Didn't Like:
Sadly, it’s just boring. I wouldn't really call it a fantasy book; there is no world-building, and while they talk about doing spells, that's about it. There is no real mention of their magic or what they actually do until the very end of the book, which left me confused. It feels much more like Wicca. Instead, it’s just a contemporary novel about being queer, literature, growing up, and daily life.
This book just wasn't for me. I struggled to find the motivation to read it, but because I don't like to DNF books, this became the longest it’s taken me to finish a book in months! I didn't care for any of the characters, and there were too many words I didn't know. If you like literature and contemporary novels, you might enjoy this, but it is almost 450 pages long—way too long for me. Looking at the reviews, I can see why it isn't highly rated and why a lot of people DNF'ed it.
Final Thoughts:
1.5⭐ purely because I finished it and the writing itself was good, but I wouldn't recommend it.
To end on a good note, here are some quotes I really liked:
"One grief cliché that's absolutely true is that everybody deals with it in their own way. So what works for you might not work for her."
"It's okay to be scared. Sometimes fear is just a signpost to the thing you want most."
"Sometimes people will try to tell you that you're wrong because you're saying things they don't want to hear."
"Happiness does not stagnate, but rather it flows, and yes, it can be blocked or diverted, or just dry up, but we can find the source again."
"I get scared, too. But I'm not so scared when you're with me."
"Thank you. For seeing me. Whatever . . . Whatever you and I become, my life will always have a space for you in it."
September 25, 2025
I was so intrigued by Jamie's dissertation research which was based almost entirely on real 18th century authors and works of literature, aside from one fictional novel and imaginary correspondence (as detailed in the Historical Note). I loved the magical realism and the queer interpretation of these people and stories; it really felt like something that could be true.
The magic is unpredictable and questionable in effect; Jamie is often uncertain whether events are a result of her spells or a coincidence, though she proposes that a good spell is one where you're never sure if it worked. She is wary of even saying the word "magic" as though a mention might make it cease to exist. Jamie's approach to magic feels antithetical to what Serena hopes to accomplish, wherein lies the predicament.
A major theme of this novel is generational trauma, and the dual timelines highlight the struggles of the queer community who came of age in the 90s and how that trauma affected Jamie's upbringing. Outside of their queer community, the world is not queer-normative and both Jamie and her parents deal with discrimination and hate.
There is also an exploration of what we owe to one another. Despite Jamie's rocky relationship with Serena, she feels obligated to reach out a hand, to rescue her mother from grief—even if that means putting her relationship with her nonbinary partner Ro at risk. Ultimately, poignantly, this is a story about love and forgiveness. That no matter how badly we mess up, we will always be loved.
It feels important to point out that this is a white queer story; the focus is on the queer and trans experiences of white characters. I also felt like some characters felt a bit flat; I didn't get a lot from Ro specifically and the character voices could have been more differentiated. I didn't fall in love with this story, but I found value in it and recommend it to those looking for something a bit therapeutic in nature.
Thank you Tor Books for the advance copy!
The magic is unpredictable and questionable in effect; Jamie is often uncertain whether events are a result of her spells or a coincidence, though she proposes that a good spell is one where you're never sure if it worked. She is wary of even saying the word "magic" as though a mention might make it cease to exist. Jamie's approach to magic feels antithetical to what Serena hopes to accomplish, wherein lies the predicament.
A major theme of this novel is generational trauma, and the dual timelines highlight the struggles of the queer community who came of age in the 90s and how that trauma affected Jamie's upbringing. Outside of their queer community, the world is not queer-normative and both Jamie and her parents deal with discrimination and hate.
There is also an exploration of what we owe to one another. Despite Jamie's rocky relationship with Serena, she feels obligated to reach out a hand, to rescue her mother from grief—even if that means putting her relationship with her nonbinary partner Ro at risk. Ultimately, poignantly, this is a story about love and forgiveness. That no matter how badly we mess up, we will always be loved.
It feels important to point out that this is a white queer story; the focus is on the queer and trans experiences of white characters. I also felt like some characters felt a bit flat; I didn't get a lot from Ro specifically and the character voices could have been more differentiated. I didn't fall in love with this story, but I found value in it and recommend it to those looking for something a bit therapeutic in nature.
Thank you Tor Books for the advance copy!
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