Five Star Book Review

Stephanie Garber, Alchemy of Secrets.

For me a five-star book is something that either I want to read again or something that is so profound it makes an immediate impact. There are lots of ways that books can be compelling: a unique idea, an interesting set of characters, a complex plot, an artistic use of the English language and more. Reading is also a subjective experience, so what appeals to me as a reader may be very different for you. I read a lot for both pleasure and work, but these short reviews are a way for me to show my appreciation for the work and the craft of the author of the reviewed work.

I am a fan of Stephanie Garber’s Caraval and Once Upon a Broken Heart series with their magical worlds, incredible but dark magic, and dangerous relationships. Alchemy of Secrets is her initial adult novel and while it still retains the magical elements of her other writing, the world is contemporary Los Angeles. For much of the story the magical elements are more subdued than her previous young adult novels. Her description of an early moment of the story could apply to the book in general:

It almost felt like magic. Not big, miraculous magic but the simple magic of timeless things. Of two-dollar bills and handwritten letters, typewriters and rotary phones. (9)

There are certainly times where big, miraculous magic is also a part of this story, but most of the story feels like this simple magic of timeless things. She has a phenomenal gift of describing places in the book as she leads you on this treasure hunt full of unreliable allies and lost knowledge. Sometimes it feels like you as a reader are impacted by the devil’s ability to make a character forget in the story and yet, as you begin to know the protagonist’s, Holland St. James’s, backstory it becomes woven into her life-or-death search for the Alchemical Heart.

Stephanie Garber’s work is comfort reading for me because it makes me believe and feel and wonder with the characters. In her words, “What is magic, if not something that makes you believe and feel and wonder?” (237) To ape the mysterious professor at the beginning of the book, “I came to this book because of her earlier stories and now she has told me another one.” There are still young adult elements to the story, but the protagonist is still young, naïve, and inexperienced and pulled by characters with a lot more experience in the magical side of the world she has sought but not truly encountered before the beginning of the story. The writing is beautiful, almost magical and the treasure hunt is an enjoyable trek through the unique architecture of Los Angeles.