I’ve really enjoyed reading works by Charlie Jane Anders in the past. I first came across her work in around 2010 as io9 gave me a view into what I should be reading as I got back into science fiction as a reader. I also really enjoyed Anders’ All the Birds in the Sky around the same time.

So I was really excited this summer when Tor Books approved me to get a copy of Anders’ latest book Lessons in Magic and Disaster through Netgalley.

The plot of Lessons in Magic and Disaster revolves around Jamie, a trans grad student, trying to reconnect with her mother Serena, a lesbian activist attorney who has been wallowing since the double whammy of her wife’s death from cancer and having her career wrecked by a right-wing smear job. Jamie’s reconnection with Serena comes in the form of introducing her to the witchcraft Jamie has been using to subtly influnence her life since she was a teenager. Mom instantly starts thinking about things she’d like to change about the world, taking the magic way beyond anything Jamie had ever considered, and well, problems ensue.

But a lot of the beauty of the book really isn’t in its plot, but in the characters and emotions and the way Anders immerses you in them. And in the stories told in parallel that reflect that if history doesn’t repeat then it certainly rhymes. Lessons in Magic and Disaster is a deeply political novel, in that it is explicitly about the lives of people who have been marginalized and the ways they cope and relate and thrive with one another.

I really enjoyed this one. In ways that had me wanting to write way more than could fit in the standard format of the Goodreads review I did of the book. Goodreads is a place of algorithms and saying things that encourage people to buy a book, and this was a book I kind of wanted to sit with and think about in a more personal way.

Jamie’s almost denied grief and her lack of understanding the fact that she hasn’t fully processed her other mother, Mae’s, death really resonated with me because over the last few years I lost both my mom and my stepdad and there are still so many things that I’ll read or see and instantly think that I need to send it over to them only to have bits of grief hit again.

Anders does a great job handling characterization throughout the book, even with antagonistic characters like Gavin, a student in Jamie’s class who is being the devil’s advocate, sealioning his way through Jamie’s lectures on the Eighteenth Century Novel. Without spoiling too much, even when Gavin is at his worst, you still see exactly how society made him who he is and how he’s this pitiable character not just a moustache twirling villain to be hated for the sake of plot. As a cis-het white dude who was a teenager in the 00s, I’ve known many Gavins, and can’t say that I haven’t been a Gavin at points in my life when I didn’t understand the effect I had on others.

I was as excited about the book as I reached toward the end as I was when I was first approved for my review copy. I really enjoyed this one.

One note, the magic here is a lot more subtle than most other fantasy. More like real life witchcraft practices than something like a Sanderson novel. It works though, because while the magic is a big part of the book, the magic isn’t the point.

If you like messy stories about families and how they try to deal with the pains that they just won’t, or can’t talk about, then you’ll probably like this one. Especially if you think tossing small subtle magic into the middle just makes the messes better.

You can purchase a copy from Bookshop.org and support local indie bookshops