I just finished reading Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey.

Goddamn.

This book scraped me raw.

Magic for Liars is full of long-buried trauma, resentment, bad choices made for justifiable reasons, smart people getting desperate and acting stupid, prophecies and weird magic and petty high school dramas. It’s incredibly emotional and very well written and undeniably tragic and…damn.

I will admit I saw part of the twist ending coming a lot earlier than the main character did. Didn’t see the other part of the twist ending, but I did figure out who killed the victim, and why. And holy shit does everything about it feel bad. Bad that it had to happen that way, bad that it fell out the way it did, bad that people who deserve to know what really happened aren’t going to get good explanations…just bad.

I wish Ivy Gamble the absolute best in picking her life back up after the events of the book. I like to think that this time it’ll work out. I know there will probably never be a sequel–this is a very self-contained story, after all–but I really wish there was, because I so desperately want to see something go right in Ivy’s life.

Honestly, that last bit right there should tell you everything you need to know about the story.