One of the criticisms I’ve had to levy more often than I’d like with new books over the last few years is this: “Not magical enough.” In my head this means something very specific but I know from the outside it’s a bit of a vague piece of feedback, so I’d like to clarify what I see as a disappointing trend among recent releases.
Ideally, most stories begin by welcoming the reader into the world. The world doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should possess some beauty, some redeeming qualities, some moments of joy. Then, as conflicts arise, that warmth starts to fade or take on a cooler edge. Through the contrast arises a real sense that something has changed or gone wrong.
Unfortunately, what I’ve noticed is that a lot of books are skipping that first step. I should clarify that when I say “magic” I’m not specifically or exclusively referring to fantasy. This is a problem across genres, and it really leaves readers in the dust.
Emotional impact arises from contrast. It’s a weird example, but think of the scene in Mulan where the army is marching to a village, joking and singing until they come over the rise and see the village in ruins—a single doll abandoned in the snow under a bloodred sky. Without the joy and humor immediately before it, you wouldn’t feel such deep horror and sadness. Without the light, the reader has nothing to grieve when the darkness closes in.
For whatever reason, a lot of the fantasy books I read as a kid absolutely nailed this. Fablehaven comes to mind first for me since I reread the first book a few months ago (and it holds up!). Grandpa Sorensen’s house, the staff, and the grounds of Fablehaven are enchanting long before a single magical creature appears in the story. Kendra’s little scavenger hunt with the keys, the paint-by-numbers picture that Lena makes, and all the lovely descriptions invite the reader in, and give them a world to escape to. Then, when things go south later in the book on the Summer Equinox or when Seth catches a fairy, those moments have greater weight because they’re infringing on this world you’ve already accepted as magical.
For a non-fantasy example, I think Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke is a great place to start (almost certainly a dedicated essay on that book coming soon). If you have somehow avoided hearing about this book despite its popularity, it has a simple premise: A tradwife influencer with a perfect life and beautiful family wakes up in the 1800s and has to practice what she preaches. I have a lot to say about this book, but I think it goes without saying that many readers will approach this book in the hope of some sweet, sweet schadenfreude. I will neither confirm nor deny whether that is in the book, but what I will say is that the book doesn’t start that way. The book starts with a portrait of Natalie Heller Mills’s life in all of its glorious, orderly, aesthetically-pleasing glory. It paints such a tidy picture, that even as someone who in no way wants that kind of life I felt myself longing for it. That is its own kind of magic, and it is that set-up that makes the novel’s descent feel so remarkably intense.
“Okay, but what are the books that are lacking magic?” Fine, I’ll be a hater now. The Apple and The Pearl by Rym Kechacha felt like one big missed opportunity. The premise is that there’s a traveling ballet performing each night in a different place to a crowd of fairfolk, with the whole cast traveling on a big magical train. And yet, there is such a complete lack of beauty and magic to the setting and plot that it really undercuts the character motivations. As I said in my original review:
“It’s such a big sacrifice to join this crew and it’s hard to understand why anyone does it because it’s not like the magic is just too tempting. It’s almost entirely dismal and dangerous with no glimmer to be tempting, either to the characters or the reader. Something like The Night Circus (which was comp’d for this book) works in part because the imagery and fantasy is so alluring that you can understand how fundamentally special it is underneath the danger. This world had little to no escapism-value. I mean, they called the train the “Grub” and the theater the “Grit” so it’s all kind of unappealing.”
It feels like such a waste for a premise with so much potential for magic to produce such a drab result.
Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer was another pretty big disappointment for me this year, especially as it’s still sitting pretty at an average 4.31 stars on Goodreads. This is a sci-fi novel about a lone robot living in a far-future New York, where the city has been abandoned and nature has reclaimed the architecture. Both this setting and the cover of the book promise magical imagery of this overgrown metropolis, and yet it’s almost completely lacking from the book itself. There is so little description or interaction with the environment that I ended up just picturing kind of a mediocre and decidedly unmagical generic dystopia. The robot (named Be) literally lives in a greenhouse, which is such a delightful image, and yet we are denied that whimsy. Then, as the plot picks up and Be leaves their leafy domain for the grittier world outside, there’s no real sense of loss on the part of the reader or even on the part of the protagonist because it feels like they’re just going from one blank, bleak setting to another. Some other recent reads that felt disappointingly unmagical to me were The Brides by Charlotte Cross, The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel, Everybody’s Perfect by Jo Walton, and All We Have is Time by Amy Tordoff.
What actually prompted this essay was a book I recently finished which somehow had the opposite problem. Retro by Jessica M. Goldstein is a thoroughly magical book with a poorly structured plot behind it. It follows a woman named Ash who gets a job at a company that offers recreational time travel trips, and most of the novel is just her visiting various destinations and moments in history: Partying in a glittering speakeasy, watching the performances at Woodstock, and breathing completely fresh and unpolluted air in the wilderness. These moments, her relationships with the other employees, and even her time in the present working at Retro have so much color and magic to them I can almost excuse the absurdly rushed and unclear ending which just left me with a lot of questions. It’s not all perfect, which is also important. The travelers are mostly annoying, her boss is clearly shady, and her love interest definitely isn’t being honest about Retro’s effects on the timeline, but those low points only matter because they’re contrasted against the high points. I still really enjoyed Retro because it scratched the magical itch, even if it was frankly not a well-constructed story.
So what’s the point? I don’t want stories to be entirely perfect or beautiful, I want there to be balance between the enchantment and the conflict because one is not as meaningful without the other. Enchantment is not merely aesthetic, but a crucial way of engaging the reader, establishing character motivation, and giving color to conflict. Of course, a book with only enchantment and no conflict will lack substance. I read partially for escapism but I need that push and pull to really care. To roughly quote Fablehaven because I can’t find the exact line:
“Too much darkness can be blinding.”
“As can too much light.”
Are you the same way? Can you enjoy a story that’s all beauty or all ugly? Let me know. In the event that you are like me, here are some all-time favorites that do a great job striking the right balance:
- The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
- A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
- Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang
- The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
- The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
- Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
Happy reading!
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