Review: 'The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic' by Emily Croy Barker

 So a few times now I've had to apologize for reading and then doing a raincheck on the review. This time, however, I reviewed the book on NetGalley but never posted it on my blog... What is wrong with me? So here it is, as I wrote it in 2015. Consider me posting this mostly unedited as my sincere mea culpa because my own writing makes me cringe. I have added a few comments below, because I couldn't help myself. Thanks to Pamela Dorman Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 8/1/2013
Publisher: Viking; Pamela Dorman Books

An imaginative story of a woman caught in an alternate world—where she will need to learn the skills of magic to survive

Nora Fischer’s dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman. During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, Nora wanders off and walks through a portal into a different world where she’s transformed from a drab grad student into a stunning beauty. Before long, she has a set of glamorous new friends and her romance with gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It’s almost too good to be true.

Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora’s new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. Making it here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school. Her only real ally—and a reluctant one at that—is the magician Aruendiel, a grim, reclusive figure with a biting tongue and a shrouded past. And it will take her becoming Aruendiel’s student—and learning magic herself—to survive. When a passage home finally opens, Nora must weigh her “real life” against the dangerous power of love and magic.

For lovers of Lev Grossman's The Magicians series (The Magicians and The Magician King) and Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy (A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night).

I requested this novel through NetGalley because I thought the premise sounded really interesting and funny. Since I am a massive Harry Potter fan, a lot of magic books are a bit of a disappointment, but not this one.* Barker creates a new spin on the idea of magic in the modern world and creates a gripping novel that doesn't feel almost 600 pages long.;

Perhaps the biggest strength of this novel is its main character, Nora. As an English student, I see my own future in Nora, struggling to have innovating ideas about age-old texts. Barker describes the relative drudgery of her academic life perfectly, but the novel really kicks off when Nora ends up in a different world, where everything seems perfect and beautiful. Once she recovers herself under Arundiel's roof, the development in her character is so subtle I only realised it upon looking back. Initially quite dependent on those she considers stronger, Nora learns to work, obey when necessary, but also to stand up for herself and demand to be taken into account. Whereas in some novels I wind up wondering what is happening to the other characters and how they are feeling, I felt truly interested in Nora for the entirety of the novel.

I absolutely loved Emily Croy Barker's approach to magic in The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic. In many supernatural novels, which I guess this one could be classed as, magic seems to be something that suddenly appears to the main character without any kind fo backstory or explanation as to its existence. Barker develops magic as something natural that has to be discovered and felt, as a part of nature that most could see but many fail to really recognize. Nothing ever invented by any society has not been abused at least once, but Barker manages to find a balance between the dark side of magic and the darkness in humans. Next to being supernatural, to an extent, Barker's novel is also part of the Fantasy genre which means it comes with the obligatory medieval setting. As a The Lord of the Rings fan I often find myself despairing of the lack of originality from some authors in their world-building.** Although Barker chose the same setting, though, she kept Nora way from the cliché kings and queens as much as possible. What I really enjoyed was the time Nora spent in the country side, allowing much more interesting and realistic characters to take over, which meant the novel moved away from the more standard tropes.***

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic is rather large, which I absolutely loved. There's nothing like completely sinking into a novel after the first 50 pages and knowing you have at least 400 more left to go. When the beginning is bad, I dread the rest, but in this case I just knew it would be exactly what I wanted to read. Which inevitably brings me to the conclusion of the novel which, surprisingly, came much sooner than I expected. Barker stopped her novel at a point in the narrative where the reader was satisfied, but could have taken a little more, keeping the intrigue going.  Despite its length, or perhaps because of it, I loved sinking away in this novel in the same way Nora entered Arundiel's world. Accompanying her on her path is a true joy, thanks to Barker's modern writing style combined with the much loved magical medieval world. Nora is a great main character that is easy to sympathise and identify with. If there ever was a sequel, I'd gladly read it!****

* I don't think I could let a single review pass during these years without mentioning either Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings or, crucially, both!
** Just wait a few more years and Fantasy will move East and be epic!
*** I had a whole paragraph here confirming that men too could enjoy this novel even though it had a female main character but I have grown beyond assuring men so I removed it.
**** Oh, if only I knew then the joy I feel now!

I give this novel...

4 Universes!

I can't wait to read Barker's follow up and it was a lot of fun revisiting my old review in preparation. Now for a reread of The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic and then on to the next step, How to Talk to a Goddess and Other Lessons in Real Magic.