cahn

Well, I liked STET, so thanks for the link, but on the other hand, you may want to take that into account when down-weighting my opinions of the rest of Gailey's work. I think STET showcases something that Gailey does well, which is to write unreliable narrators. The narrator of Magic for Liars will tell you all about what it means to be "magic"--- what it means that her sister is and she isn't. I felt like the book invited me to decide for myself just how much of what she said was true and how much was self-serving. (The narrator of The Echo Wife is also wrong about pretty much everyone she knows, and I spent the first few chapters wondering if Gailey knew how unsympathetic she sounded. By the end of the book, I'd decided it was very intentional.)

I'd be curious to hear how Cahn thinks Magic for Liars stacked up versus A Deadly Education, since both of them are clearly playing off the Harry Potter series. Magic in HP is a fantasy about being "special" that I think I definitely had as a child as well. Of course, Harry gets to enjoy that (he's super-special) and resent it (he's still locked out of the ultra-privileged inner circle of old Wizarding families that Draco comes from) at the same time, which also rings true to my childhood experiences. Novik and Gailey both seem interested in more adult takes on it.