The Fascinators

This was a pretty good story but very clearly part 1. This wasn't really long enough to develop the characters or plot in much depth but is very promising and I'd love to read more!

A great read. I really enjoyed it.

The Fascinators is a magical realism story set in a world where magic is real and commonplace, but not necessarily accepted.The pacing of the book is very slow. It was sweet and entertaining, but for a huge chunk of it I felt that there wasn't really anything happening. It was fun to read, but I didn't really feel a desperate need to keep going. The end wasn't bad, although I'd say this book goes out with a pop and fizzle rather than a bang!The friendships and the characters themselves are really well written. I enjoyed the 3 main characters interactions with one another, but although I was certainly rooting for them, there was nothing special or different about them.The world building was good, although the magic was a little vague. However, I loved the descriptive writing and the author's style!I enjoyed the book well enough, but probably wouldn't rush to read it again.I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The characters were pretty thinly drawn and strangley, mostly unlikeable. I felt the pacing was off, with a very long slow build followed by a number of time jumps to get to the final chapter. As if the author had exceeded his word count and needed to cut a few chapters. There was also an odd shift in perspective from the main character to one of the supporting characters 3/4 of the way through.I was very disappointed to find that the single character of colour was the one the MC disliked.The world building was thin. It was 200+ pages into the book before it was made clear that everyone in this world has magic. There’s no exploration of how magic would make this world different from our own, it just seems that everything's the same, but magic is real. And while you might think that everyone having and being able to use magic was an important plot point, withheld so the reveal would be an aha moment, it wasn't. It’s so completely unimportant, I initially thought I’d missed an earlier explanation.The magic system itself was inconsistent. I initially equated it to singing, especially in combination with the way religion was portrayed. Thas is, that everyone can do it, but some people are much better at it than others, and some people think it should only be used for worship. There was the idea that getting better takes practice and more niche magic needs specialist training, like opera for example. But then all of that went out the window because there’s magic that needs spells, magic that just needs a thought, magic that needs ingredients and magic that doesn’t, and then some magic is inate and is always just "on" and magic that's inate but needs to activated. There was also no real way to gauge what was considered powerful magic and what was “everyday” magic.Even the love story wasn't all compelling. Overall the book was disappointing.

I feel as though I have been waiting years for this to finally be released. It was worth the wait and I finished it in two days... Would have been one day if I didn't have to work 👹Lovable, relatable, enjoyable characters. Good and "realistic" magic system. A few times I felt as though it was missing some action... But ultimately it didn't distract from how much I enjoyed it.Interested to see what Eliopulos conjures up next