Magically brilliant, academically perfect, chronically overcommitted…
Shay Johnson has all the makings of a successful witch. Now that she’s a junior at T.K. Anderson Magical Magnet School, she’s one step closer to winning the full-ride Brockton Scholarship–her ticket into the university of her dreams. Her main competition? Ana freaking Alvarez. The key to victory? Impressing Mr. B, drama teacher and head of the scholarship committee.
When Mr. B persuades Shay to star in this year’s aggressively inclusive, racially diverse musical—at their not-quite-diverse school–she agrees, wearily, even though she’ll have to put up with Ana playing the other lead. But with rehearsals underway, Shay realizes Ana is…not the despicable witch she’d thought. Perhaps she could even be a friend–or more. And Shay could use someone in her corner once she finds herself on the receiving end of Mr. B’s unpleasant and unwanted attention. When Shay learns she’s not the first witch to experience his inappropriate behavior, she must decide if she’ll come forward. But how can she speak out when the scholarship–and her future–are on the line?
How To Succeed In Witchcraft gets published September 27th, 2022!
To be honest, I was a little terrified of this book going into it.
We can tell from the book’s description that this book is going to focus on a teacher’s unwanted attention on a student, and my brain immediately began comparing what I thought this book was going to be about with the betrayal I felt when finding out that someone I looked up to was sexually assaulting minors. It was a moment that really hurt me in the past–still hurts to this day–and made this book seem like something I wasn’t going to have a fun time reading.
But while this book talks about important topics related to this sort of issue, the fantastical elements of the story made me feel safe in knowing it wasn’t real.
Let’s try to talk around the issue without spoiling the story: In this book, witches can share their magic with other witches, a process described as being extremely intimate and not something you do with just anyone. Because we’re dealing in magic, something that doesn’t exist in the real world (unless it does and no one was nice enough to clue me in), we can get around talking about intimacy and being taken advantage of without having to talk about sex.
I enjoyed how the main character struggled in this story with allowing Mr. B to continue his behavior versus reporting him, as I think it’s a decision a lot of people won’t take lightly. To call him out means she’ll lose the scholarship and her chance for a better future, but to let him continue means throwing the girls who come after her under the bus. Humans are generally pretty selfish, I think, and this sort of situation could be played a hundred different ways by a hundred different people.
I also really enjoyed seeing the relationship develop between Shay and Ana in this book, both in the friendship sense and the romantic sense. Early on in this book, I was really hoping for the two to put aside their differences and support each other through this situation, but the reveal that not everything was how Shay thought it was between the two of them made for an interesting relationship between the girls that I really enjoyed.
I wasn’t 100% happy with the ending of the story, though I can understand why those choices were made. I can only hope these characters move on to have happy and fulfilling lives, and I recommend this book to anyone who can handle this sort of discussion.
KiiitasticBooks 