The expectations I had for the book may have led to the 4 stars instead of 5 stars. While it is a murder mystery...the majority of the fiction is dedicated to non-magical and P.I Ivy's past, and the state of her traumatic and complex relationship with her magical twin sister. Estranged from her at a young age, taking this case dredges up unresolved feelings beneath the issues that inform Ivy's life.

Fitting within the P.I mold, Ivy has some... bad habits, particularly alcohol as a coping mechanism. I liked that this trope actually had some heavy bearing on the majority of the fiction. Sometimes it's just a given that a P.I has these coping mechanisms and it's sort of handwaved. Ivy dredges up her own past in a peripheral way when she takes the case at the same magical school her estranged sister goes to. Both never truly dealt with some seriously heavy issues in high school, and they start to reconnect as the investigation proceeds.

There is an unreliable narrator aspect of the story that does a bit too much hand waving for my tastes, though. Ivy doesn't have a very professional approach to the case, in that she inserts herself into some of the people's lives in a way that completely compromises her investigation. It's a trade-off. There's a lot of interesting drama and the writer is fantastic at expressing Ivy's inner thoughts and feelings--and tying them to the unfolding narrative.

My quibbles are small. There was a satisfying ending, it's well written and interesting. But I'm a sucker for magic systems and the title sort of implies there's going to be one? Instead, it's essentially just if you're magic, you "get it"; if you're not magical--you just will not get it. It was very unsatisfying. This, along with the unreliable narrator aspects that hand waves a bit too much, downgraded my rating.

Ultimately I really liked the overall tone that was coupled with a believable sense of honesty that comes with the unreliable narrator aspects. It's very heavy and quite sad. I liked that the expected catharsis that comes along with these types of stories was elegant and, again, quite honest. It's a messy ending and I really liked that about it.

Thank you very much for the Advance Reader Copy of "Magic for Liars" by Sarah Gailey. I did enjoy parts of the book, and I did finish, but this was not the perfect book for me. I do like private detective books with some self loathing, but felt that IVY was a little too self defeating. Also I got kind of bogged down towards the middle for some reason. I do feel that this will be a good book for many readers, particularly women, hopefully that does not come off as mansplaining and or sexism. There were many female characters and I do not have as much insight as a female reader may have. I do follow Ms. Gailey on Twitter, and have a great deal of respect for her and her work.Again, Thank you, and happy reading.

Magic for Liars is Sarah Gailey’s answer to detective noir, murder mysteries, and magical schools, and from the moment I heard of it, it’s been one of my most anticipated books of the year. In anticipation, I’ve spent this year reading all of Gailey’s work that I could get my hands on and, much like their short fiction and novellas, Magic for Liars is cleverly written, darkly humorous, brilliantly insightful, and impossible to put down.

Gailey casts their own spell with the premise alone: private investigator Ivy Gamble gets asked to solve a gruesome murder at Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged and magically gifted twin sister Tabitha teaches. From the moment Ivy takes the case, the story spirals into a character-driven exploration of nuanced sibling relationships, the pressures and expectations of magic, realistic high school drama, and how to heal from and process the difficulties, choices, and traumas of life—magical or otherwise. The narrative carried a heartbreaking emotional weight that I wasn’t always prepared for and yet, at the same time, this was the most fun I’ve had reading a novel this year.

This book takes an obscene amount of my interests and manages to combine them into a beautiful, coherent narrative that feels like it shouldn’t work—but it does. I left this book longing to return to the magic and secrets of Osthorne, despite everything I’d seen, and I’m confident that any reader who picks this up will find something to love about it. I’m already eagerly awaiting whatever Gailey decides to write next and when Magic for Liars releases in June, I’ll already be shoving it into the hands of everyone I know.

2.5 disappointment-laden stars.

I wanted to like this SO much. I loved the American Hippo books. The concept for this was exceptional. And it was touted as being a cross between The Magicians and Tana French.

Unfortunately, the book failed to live up to the premise it set up. While it simmered with potential almost right up to the end, the story often felt flat, the plot had a lot of threads that never quite knit together properly, and worst of all, the "solve" was a complete cop-out (and an overused one) that feels cowardly every time a mystery writer uses it to explain a murder.

Also, the whole book is just utterly depressing.

I can see the Tana French comparison to an extent, but this book has zero in common with The Magicians, so look elsewhere if you're seeking your next Brakebills-like fix.

Gailey writes well and she had a GREAT idea for this story, but the execution was such a disappointment.

Sarah Gailey is an absolute delight. Her writing style is fun, fresh, and it looks effortless. I was excited to read Magic for Liars and I can't wait to see what she does next!

Magic for Liars was so great, I really enjoyed this book. Ivy Gamble is a PI who has no magical abilities, unlike her estranged twin Tabitha. When there's a murder at the (magic) school Tabitha teaches at, Ivy is hired to investigate, and she has to confront her feelings of inadequacy and grief over the way her life has gone. I liked Ivy - she's really relatable - and both the mystery and the setting are nicely developed. Mrs Webb, the school secretary, in particular, is fascinating, and I liked the way the students and teachers try to manipulate Ivy. It can be hard for her to tell what's magic and what isn't. I did wish for a little more from the book - it would have been nice to get a little better feel for the victim, and I thought that the murderer was fairly obvious about three quarters through the book and the ending felt a little rushed. That being said, this was a great read and I highly recommend it.

A murder in a school for witches. To get the murderer, they need someone from the outside. Someone who is not one of them. Ivy Gamble, P.I., will solve this case.

Ivy is happy with her life, until she gets a visit from the headmistress of the Osthorne Academy for young Mages. One of their teachers, Sylvia Capley, was found death in the academy library and she does not believe the report the NMIS – National Mage Investigative Service – gave her, that it was just a magic accident.

Now, Ivy is going to a place she swore she would never set a foot in and she has to face her sister Tabitha, who is a teacher at the Academy. If taking on a murder case, which she usually does not do, talking to her sister seems to be harder than working on a case she did not ask for.

Sarah Gailey’s magic crime book is a mix of Blood Ties meets Veronica Mars with a bit of Harry Potter sprinkled in throughout the page. Be aware that it may sound obvious in which direction the story might go, but trust me, you will get it wrong a few times. Another similarity is that there is a chosen one who will be the most powerful mag of our time. This person is revealed pretty early on within the story and does turn out to be an important clue to the story. However, it does kind of feel misplaced with everything else going on.

The most interesting part in the story is the fact that mags are capable of doing some really cool things, even curing people. However, this is only possible until a certain point when everything goes sideways. This is something that is usually not a topic in a magic story, or it is said that it just is not possible. But here, it is and this is what makes Magic for Liars special. 

How far would you go to heal a person? How much are you willing to risk?

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan/Tor-Forge for this arc.

I wish I enjoyed this read more than I did. It sounded like it would be right up my alley. But it just missed out for me. I was so irritated with Ivy's self pity through out the book, that I was tempted to give up by 37%. I found it to be a slow read as it lacked the tension I usually find in murder mysteries and I had a tough time connecting to any of the characters. There was plenty of teenage angst and drama (as expected for a story set in a high school), but the "magic" didn't really sparkle for me.

2.5 stars rounded up.

I liked this one so much more than I thought I would!

I'm typically not a noir (or murder) fan, but the magic element got me a little intrigued, so I decided to give it a try. Got pleasantly transported to a magical high school, with some fun twists and turns and some really wonderful weirdness.

The magic in this story is subdued, focusing more on the mystery and relationships, but the magic that was present was weirdrously imaginative. Gailey's got a funky, descriptive angle on the magical realm and hey girl honestly if you're reading this can we just grab coffee and hang out because anybody who can create this world seems super rad, y'know?

Also, the strained sister relationship - god, I'm a sucker for this. I have a sister and I love her and I always wish we were closer and I'm always happy when we connect, and those moments feel too rare and spark a yearning ache in the center of my chest when they happen and this book captured that complicated sister relationship perfectly.

My one complaint was the alcoholic angle of Ivy's character - it was weakly done and felt unnecessary. There's a writing tip that says something along the lines of 'if you can take it out of your story and it doesn't change anything, it doesn't need to be there,' and you could take the alcoholism out of the story and it honestly wouldn't change a thing and would be improved for it in my opinion. It felt like the author skimmed the wikipedia page on alcoholism and just threw in some bottles of wine because a noir PI is generically an alcoholic. It felt forced and unnecessary.

HOWEVER. It was a small part of the book, and I loved everything else. Also I really love Miss Gamble? Like can we get a full novel of just her? Maybe in her healing years? I would read this so fast.

This book was more than I expected it to be. I found it difficult to put down once I got about halfway through it. Ivy's struggle with her relationships, both with her sister and her love interests felt very real. I enjoyed the detective story and the uncovering of secrets.

"Magic for Liars" is Pretty Little Liars meets the Magicians meets whoever your favorite noir antihero is. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, it probably isn't. The protagonist, Ivy, is a non-magical PI with alcoholism, insecurity issues, and a magical twin sister who teaches at a Not-Hogwarts; the two are estranged, but Ivy wishes for a reconciliation. In fact, she wishes for more than that: she longs to belong to the world of the endless wonder of magic, especially once she gets a job investigating a murder of another teacher at her sister's school. It's a refreshing approach, telling a story about a magical school through an outsider's perspective; there are the Chosen Ones' disputes in the periphery, incomprehensible magical terminology thrown around, which Ivy just does her best to pretend to understand, etc, etc. Gailey masterfully plays with tropes and cliches for both the urban fantasy and noir genre, and the result is quite entertaining. It's not hard to figure out who the culprit is ahead of the big reveal (not that it ruins anything if you do) and the fantasy/worldbuilding aspect isn't at all comprehensive, but it's a fun read!

Thank you, NetGalley, for the e-ARC!

A magicmurdermystery with some interesting twists. The heroine is appealing and it was an enjoyable read. I definitely didn't see the ending coming!

I so wanted to love this book more. I had such high hopes based on Gailey's other fiction I had read, because this book should have been a ride I would fast-pass every single time.

But: too much of the liars, not enough magic.

It is possible for an outsider to describe what magic is and what it does, but this may as well have been an academic murder mystery at a gifted high school with advanced scientists on the faculty. I really struggled with the writer's lack of ease in translating some of the bigger picture of a world with magic in it.

Likewise, there were too many flat characters -- indeed, too many characters in general for me to get invested, and those who got the biggest feature were at times ones it felt like I didn't want emphasize. Straight up, I did not care two shakes about Rahul no matter how cute he was and how he inspired the narrator to connect.

There were moments that sang, and this was by no means a bad book, but oh, it landed in 'aggressively mediocre' when I was hoping for Gailey's best. I will still recommend this, but only for the hardcore lovers of the magic-academy trope.

This book presents as (urban fantasy) noir: a private investigator, who drinks too much to cope with her loneliness and alienation, is given the opportunity to move up from adulterous spouses and work on an actual murder mystery, at the magical school where her estranged twin sister teaches.

She insists she's fine with the fact that her sister has magic and she doesn't. I spent some of the time nearly believing her, and I think she spent some of the time nearly believing herself. She's a deeply flawed and broken person who I absolutely wanted to succeed, even though that seemed highly unlikely.

There's some more tragic backstory of the kind that could happen in almost any family, which only makes it more effective; and there's a doomed romance with one of the other teachers. Doomed, because the PI tells herself that, for the sake of the investigation, she has to not reveal the fact that she has no magic... hence, I assume, the title, Magic for Liars.

It pulls off the feat of being adjacent to a classic YA story - there's a prophecy about a Chosen One, and all kinds of teen magic-school drama and angst - without that story taking over, or even being taken all that seriously most of the time.

There are some beautifully crafted phrases, like "It was like stealing candy from a big bowl of free candy surrounded by helpful multilingual signposts," or "the bags under my eyes were definitely well past the carry-on limit".

There are herrings of a deep red hue (which had me completely fooled); terrible and wonderful moments of powerful magic; deliberately incomprehensible jargon that the PI pretends to understand, and that imply a complex and deep magical world; poignant interpersonal and intrapersonal moments; and an ending that, somewhat contrary to the noir tradition, holds out some hope (without revealing the outcome of the hope one way or the other). It's powerful, and expertly done, which is why I bumped it up to five stars. It isn't the kind of book that naturally leads to a sequel, but I would certainly read another book by this author, especially if it took place in the same world.

The one significant criticism I have is that the pattern of "reluctant witness is about to finally give the PI a clue, someone interrupts" happens a bit too often.

I received a pre-publication copy from Netgalley for review.

Magic for Liars was a fun read, complete with a protagonist, Ivy, who is a hot mess and has to investigate a brutal murder at the exclusive school for magic where her estranged twin sister works.
I enjoyed the world that Gailey created and how she merged magic into the everyday world and even explained how it worked. I also loved how the teenagers were teenagers, despite their magical ability. Her writing is lovely and is full of vivid descriptions.
Ivy is a great character — fallible, self doubting, messy, drinks too much, yet smart in her own way. It is interesting to watch her navigate this strange world of magic as an outsider, as the reader is, and try to solve the murder.
I did feel like it all ended very quickly, like there was something more that would have brought us to the ending in a more satisfying way, though I did enjoy the twist at the end.
Thank you to NetGalley for a review copy of this book.

A genre-bending, fast-paced magical thriller full of complicated, powerful women and their secrets. I loved the wry humor of this voice, and the mystery kept me guessing until the very end. Thrilling and imaginative. Four enthusiastic stars!

Magic for Liars is basically a noir detective story--a PI is hired to investigate a murder that happened at the boarding school her twin sister works at. A boarding school for mages. It's smart literary fantasy, and I absolutely loved it.

Ivy Gamble is a PI. Her twin sister is a mage -- able to use magic unlike her sister -- and teaches in an academy for the few other magic-gifted. When a murder takes place at the magic academy (think Hogwarts mixed with 91210) Ivy is called in to investigate. Had the book comprised entirely of this plot I think I might have been more interested but instead this plot is intertwined with Ivy's attempts to address her long-standing jealousy of and bitterness for her equally unpleasant sister. I was looking for a fun mystery, not a dark and unhappy character sketch. The book was very competently written, but it just wasn't for me.

I'm giving this full stars because I love Sarah Gailey and it's not her fault that I hate murder mysteries and I was stupid enough to click Request before I read the description :P Just not my cup of tea.