
The Fascinators
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Narrated by:
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Michael Crouch
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By:
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Andrew Eliopulos
A magic-infused YA novel about friendship, first love, and feeling out of place that will bewitch fans of Rainbow Rowell and Maggie Stiefvater.
Living in a small town where magic is frowned upon, Sam needs his friends James and Delia - and their time together in their school's magic club - to see him through to graduation. But as soon as senior year starts, little cracks in their group begin to show. Sam may or may not be in love with James. Delia is growing more frustrated with their amateur magic club. And James reveals that he got mixed up with some sketchy magickers over the summer, putting a target on all their backs.
With so many fault lines threatening to derail his hopes for the year, Sam is forced to face the fact that the very love of magic that brought his group together is now tearing them apart - and there are some problems that no amount of magic can fix.
©2020 Andrew Eliopulos (P)2020 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...




















wasted potential
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An accessible story about love and magic!
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A lovely ride
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Okay
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The issue is that this book is also trying to have an overarcing plot and narrative and a love story and in those senses, it really falls short. The world setting was pretty neat, but the plot is middling at best and occasionally outright boring. I don't feel like most of the characters actually had an arc or went anywhere, from a narrative standpoint, and the two that really did... well, one is our main character whose development just feels kinda flat by the end, and the other is given an extremely flimsy motivation for doing something extremely questionable and then is just kinda... left out there, with no finished plot line.
I dunno, by the end I really found myself feeling like the whole thing had been a bit of a waste of time, especially since of the two romances the book makes you wanna root for, one gets treated like an afterthought and the other goes unresolved entirely. That was a real let down.
The narrator's performance was... middling. I can tell he's actually VERY good, but in his effort to try and give every character a distinct voice, his delivery of Sam's lines just winds up being flat and vaguely depressing pretty much all the way through, like he's perpetually sad, and I didn't feel like that really fit the tone of most of Sam's lines. An unfortunate choice, I think.
Anyway, all of it was, overall, passable and at least something to listen to on a drive or something. But I just found myself really disappointed by it.
Kind of disappointing
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Left me wanting more
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Mostly wonderful, BUT...
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As soon as I finished listening to this audiobook I went off to search out the author on social media, to see if there were plans for a sequel. Sadly, the author doesn't appear to utilize social media much, and even though the last update on Instagram was pretty recent, it was a post about him leaving his job and making some changes, and it didn't sound too promising for a follow-up novel, which makes me sad.
Because, while I really enjoyed this story, there are a couple of things left unresolved, or at least left me wanting more! I feel like a whole series could come from this book, and I would be more than happy about it.
The Fascinators kept me entertained and intrigued from the start. I enjoyed the mystery and the magic, but towards the end things seemed a little rushed, and wrapped up a little too quickly for my liking. As I mentioned before, there are a couple of plot points that I would have liked to have seen brought to a better resolution, especially if this is a standalone. I can kind of accept one of the points being left open-ended, but there was an important relationship that definitely deserved more than what it got at the end. I may have to go back and read the ending again, in case I missed something while listening to it.
But overall, I really liked this book. It's a coming of age story with a little magic and mystery woven in.
Michael Crouch is my favorite narrators for YA. He does a wonderful job with all the different voices and characters. And there were a lot of them in this book!
I need more!
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Melancholic coming of age
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Also, Michael Crouch proves, yet again, that he is one of the best audiobook narrators working today. Spot on, as always.
A different kind of story about magic
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