This was so good. It felt like a very real and relatable queer story. The Chloe storyline was heartbreaking and I loved the representation of Modern witches in such a positive light!

3.75 Stars. I received both the e-book and audiobook ARCs in exchange for my honest opinion.

So, this was an interesting read, to be sure. This is a bit of a mystery with a hint of an unreliable narrator that challenged me when I read it. Eleanor is a sympathetic narrator when the story begins with her having become pariah at school because of a dramatic falling out with her best friend and first love, Cloe. She also self medicates by smoking marijuana to get away from the bullying and the fact that her mother is dying and Eleanor has to be the sole source of income in her family. When she meets and makes friends with a young woman named Pix, she slowly starts to open up.

This isn't as bad in the audiobook, but because a lot of Pix and Eleanor's early interactions revolve around Eleanor's magic shop and tarot cards, sections of the book are themed after the meaning of most of the cards themselves. I feel like it breaks up the narration a little too much, and I lost some of the tension of the slow reveal of what happened between Chloe and Eleanor the year before.

What makes it really good, though is that slow reveal and the decisions that lead up to the event that changed Eleanor's life forever. I don't want to give away anything, but I believe the book does challenge the idea that a protagonist must always be a hero or good person. After I finally knew what happened to Chloe and Eleanor behavior leading up to that event, I'd say that it really complicates things. You have to decide if Eleanor's actions were understandable, if wrong and very much misguided, or if you lose your sympathy for her. I believe the book wants the reader to be, at the very least, understanding, but it might be a difficult ask. It will come down to the reader's willingness to adjust their expectations for Eleanor.

For folks who enjoy mysteries and complicated protagonists, I think this will be a great book to pick up. I do not think that the reveal will appeal to all readers though, as Eleanor is revealed to have been unhealthily obsessed with Chloe and she made some poor decisions because of it.

Sadly, this was a DNF for me. I just couldn't connect with either character making it impossible for me to get into. This is all a me preference though and it won't stop me from promoting this book to teens along with other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books, Balzer + Bray, for providing me an ARC.

I LOVED this book! I thought it was incredibly clever to write a book based around the tarot deck and tie it into the journey of the main character, Eleanor.

This book was a pretty quick read and there was so much packed in. We see flashbacks to the prior year and learned what happened to Eleanor to make her so reclusive. We get to see her start to heal, come out of her shell, and find a group of supportive friends.

Just overall a really cute, quick story about self acceptance, and discovery.

What a cute romance. I loved the two main characters and their friends. I liked the setting. I liked the twist in the main characters backstory and seeing her heal slowly over everything. A really cute story.

This story is nothing short of magical. From the characters to the world-building, this is definitely one of the best books I have read this year. 5 stars!

An emotional look at young love, this book tugged at my heartstrings. I sympathized with Eleanor who loved Chloe so fiercely and found her desperate pining relatable. I also appreciated the diverse cast of characters and enjoyed seeing Eleanor and Pix’s relationship blossom.

Elanor is Salem's self proclaimed biggest cynic. Surrounded by mass produced 'bad witch' merch and the glorification of one of histories biggest tragedies, let's just say she has opinions on the witchcraft of it all.
Then the store she works at gets a hand drawn Tarot deck in the mail, and she meets a cute girl named Pix, and Elanor has to reassess her views on witchcraft, and believing in things.
Overall this was a good book, the characters were well developed, the story had layers, it was just missing a little bit of the plot for me.
I also was hoping a book about witches in Salem would be a little more magical! It's classified as a 'fantasy' novel but it's 100% contemporary which was GOOD but not what I was expecting.

I read practically every Young Adult and Romance novel with the word "witch" in the title...and this one just ok. I felt like the mental health stuff was realistic but not always portrayed in the healthiest of ways. And the main character basically stalking others is not a good vibe.

With the number of witchy spell tales having risen in both adult and young adult books, I was happy to see the author mixing up the format. A tarot card guides each chapter of Eleanor's tale. The minor arcana and the major arcana provide the tone and clearly shows that she is starting a new story, a new adventure as the 'fool' of our story.

Eleanor has a sick mom, has lost her ex, and is relatively lonely. To combat her feelings, she smokes weed to escape reality until she meets Pix, who opens up Eleanor's life to parts she has been neglecting.

Although I enjoyed the concept, this was a quicker read than I had hoped and avoided some of the depth it could have delved into when it brought up subjects like using drugs to cope. That said, what it did well, though, was showing how people, a reader, can assume the protagonist is good, yet like most teenagers, be quite flawed and still exploring who they are/want to be. The discussions on mental health and how we learn over time what to do / what not to do were insightful.
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Thank you to HarperCollins and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“He’s the sign of new beginnings, of allowing yourself to dream. Nothing happens without The Fool.”
At first, I thought this was just going to be a cute, witchy YA rom-com, but this ended up surprising me with so much more emotional depth. It explores Elinor's struggles with mental health after a brutal exclusion from her high school class and her first love and how she manages to rebuild her identity as she meets a group of women and finds the true meaning of love and friendship. I appreciated that the magic system of this book was very close to some modern day witchcraft practices and how the witches wanted to bring the heart back to Salem. Also loved learning more about tarot along the way!

I really enjoyed this book! It beautifully blends mysticism with realism and all of the ways that both of those things can impact personal relationships.
Eleanor thought moving to Salem could be her chance to start over but she has since become the biggest cynic in Salem. When a mysterious handwritten tarot reading guide shows up in the mail, it seems to portent that magic is about to enter her life, whether she believes or not. Eleanor's instinct to dismiss this is challenged by the arrival of real-life witch Pix and her coven of witches. Haunted by her recent past, Eleanor struggles to open herself to the possibility that things could go differently in the present.
This story is a sweet high school lesbian romance. I especially appreciated that it avoided the tired trope of internalized homophobia and subsequent "gay panic." When Eleanor realizes she is attracted to girls she just thinks, "oh, that makes sense," and moves on with her life. I thought that Kate Scelsa brought just enough mysticism to the coven's magical practices to be interesting and hopeful and welcoming, without verging too far into "woo-woo" territory, which could alienate more cynical readers (much like Eleanor).
All in all, a very enjoyable read!

Salem, fall, witches, tarot cards, romance, female owned business…what more could I want? A lot. A lot more.
I was really disappointed by this story, but let me start out with some positives: I love the diversity amongst the characters, the art/summary of the tarot cards, and vagina vases (iykyk). The love and care between Eleanor, her mom, and her mom’s best friend is a family structure we don’t see often enough in books, and for a book about a coven and found family, adding a non-nuclear family structure worked well.

Off to the things I could do without: Eleanor’s internal struggle with her past relationship. <spoiler>Eleanor is literally a stalker. I know she admits this and weakly apologizes, but I don’t like how we were supposed to pity her or forgive her in any way. I also don’t like the concept of LGBTQ+ people as predators of any kind (although of course there are queer stalkers that exist) because it feeds into any already existing stereotype of gay queer individuals being sexual predators and deviants. I was really disappointed by this part of the book.</spoiler> I could also do without Pix being a literally manic pixie dream girl. That trope is so 2000’s and we should be over it. Also, the vilification and misrepresentation of marijuana. Let me be clear, I have no issues with Eleanor smoking (actually I think we will be seeing more marijuana use in YA since it is such a presence in kid’s lives) but it's clear Scelsa doesn’t approve and frames her use of marijuana as a hopeless addiction as a symptom of her heartbreak. Scelsa creates this false dichotomy: it is not true that you either smoke so much you can’t think without it, or you abstain.

And finally, to the things I wanted more of: A plot! Action! Something to happen! For real, nothing exciting happened at all. I also wanted the tarot card chapter breaks to have more direct ties to what happened in the following chapter. It is such a cool element to include and clearly Scelsa put a lot of time and effort into the tarot meta so I wish it had a clearer impact on the characters and story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Kate Scelsa, and HarperCollins Children's Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a honesty review!

The story will grab readers and make them want to read more, to find out the pain of Eleanor's past and the potential joy of her future.

Improbable Magic for Cynical Witches, by Kate Scelsa, follows Eleanor, a girl who lives in Salem, Massachusetts and has spent the past year in a fog of weed and isolation. When a tarot deck is sent to the store at which she works and a cute girl named Pix begins to invite Eleanor to hang out with her and her friends as part of their coven, Eleanor begins to learn how to forgive herself for past mistakes and move on.

This book just felt flat to me. It had a lot of elements that usually appeal to me (as well as some that I never like), but it just failed to ever interest me that much.

The plot structure takes the form of essentially following two separate timelines: that of the present day, where Eleanor is slowly becoming closer to Pix and the rest of the coven, and Eleanor's memories of the events leading up to the previous Halloween, which had been the final trigger for Eleanor dropping out of school and becoming so reliant on drugs. I didn't enjoy the events in Eleanor's past; all of the characters, including Eleanor, were so horrible that I just couldn't bring myself to care about their drama, and I almost wish that that entire plot had been revealed at the beginning so that the rest of the book could actually feel like Eleanor moving on from it. It would ruin some of the mystery, but it would also make Eleanor more likable and the book less painful to read.

Eleanor's an okay character. I honestly could not tell you a single thing about her personality. Due to her mother's health condition, Eleanor has to work at her mother's best friend's store, and it's also why they had to move to Salem two years previously. I can't reveal much about what Eleanor is struggling with without revealing much of the plot, but it was largely a problem of her own creation. I didn't like her that much, but she was bearable enough to get through the book.

The rest of the characters varied a lot. Pix, the love interest, was probably the most likable character, but even she wasn't developed that much. Similarly, Eleanor's mother and her best friend are both relatively enjoyable to read about, but neither is overly present in the story. I liked the rest of the coven fine, but they weren't great. Essentially everybody else in the book is completely horrible.

The romance between Eleanor and Pix is cute enough, but it would've obviously been better if Eleanor had been more likable and Pix had had more depth. Still, in a book where I was not enjoying much of the plot, I did find the romance plotline to be a welcome respite.

The one thing that I did really enjoy about the book was the witchiness about it. It's definitely not a fantasy book, but I'm always happy to read about sapphic witches in any context. While far from the best in the young-adult-books-about-queer-witches subgenre, I did still really enjoy those elements of the book.

Overall, I did kind of enjoy reading this book, but it was mostly just disappointing, especially since I'd really been looking forward to it. Although I really hated the plotline that took place in Eleanor's past I enjoyed the present timeline enough to not completely hate the book. Nevertheless, the characters were all flat enough and there was little enough depth anywhere in the book that I'm giving it 2.5/5 stars. I can see why some people might like it, but it really just wasn't for me at all.

Lesbian witches? Yes, please! Quite adorable and encouraging one to make peace with one's past in order to fully enjoy the wonder of the present.

Queer witches? Sign me up. The description and cover artwork were enough to pull me in and hook me on this book! Eleanor's adventure that begins with a Tarot deck delivery is the kind of mysterious, whirlwind teen romance that we all long for. As a middle school librarian, it had just the right amount of romance that I could add it to my collection for my students!

What I thought would just be a light witchy rom com was actually a little darker and a little deeper.

Eleanor is healing from a bad break up (and bad choices thereafter) and meets pix; an actual witch. Learning magic and opening herself up to Pix helps Eleanor to heal and learn from her past.

This was written so well, through the lens of the tarot, that it catapulted the story along. Some of the flashbacks were hard to read (emotionally) and sometimes took you out of the story, slowing you down, but overall it was a good story told in a new way. I highly enjoyed it!

It took me longer to finish this book than I would have liked, mostly because I just got really busy and didn’t have time to sit down and read. Other than that, I enjoyed this book. It was more realistic (magical realism) than typical witch/paranormal fantasy but that made it all the more interesting. Another thing I really enjoyed was that the tarot cards opened up each chapter, that was a very nice touch. Everything seemed a little childish to me, but I’m not a teenager anymore so maybe I just have a harder time connecting to it. Overall, I did enjoy this book, and I can see how someone in the target YA demographic would love it.

I loved the title and cover of this book. The premise was intriguing, it's queer, and the format is based on tarot - exploring a new card major arcana card with each chapter. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting into the book. The main character didn't click with me immediately, though her focus, Pix, was immediately engaging. This book may have not been for me, but I would still encourage others to pick it up.