Major Arcana is an ambitious, intellectually charged novel that straddles the line between literary fiction and dark academia without succumbing to the clichés of either. Pistelli constructs a labyrinthine narrative that challenges readers to engage with its complexities, offering a story that is as thought-provoking as it is unsettling.

The characters are striking in their flaws—arrogant, self-absorbed, yet deeply human. They compel empathy even as their actions repel it, a testament to Pistelli's skill in creating multidimensional personalities. The book's structure, reminiscent of serialized 19th-century fiction, feels innovative and deliberate, each chapter adding layers like cards in a tarot spread, building toward an intricate and resonant conclusion.

At times, the novel’s density and its refusal to simplify its ideas can feel overwhelming, but this is also its strength. It invites a level of intellectual engagement rare in contemporary fiction, rewarding readers willing to sit with its challenges.

This is a book for those who relish complexity—for those who read not just to escape but to confront the messy, contradictory nature of human ambition and art. It’s a sharp, unflinching work that lingers long after the final page.

Reading Major Arcana felt like stepping into an intricate labyrinth—both thrilling and confounding, where each twist invited not just reflection but a reevaluation of the paths already taken. Pistelli doesn’t merely tell a story; he builds a self-aware, almost spectral world, where the line between artifice and authenticity blurs deliciously.

Unlike other “dark academia” novels, which can sometimes luxuriate in their own cleverness, Major Arcana uses its intellectual gravitas to interrogate, not indulge. It critiques the very elitism it embodies, wielding its literary weight as both a weapon and a mirror. This duality makes it as unsettling as it is magnetic. It’s the kind of novel that has you jotting down phrases on scraps of paper, not because it’s quotable in a twee way, but because it refuses to release you from its grip.

Pistelli’s characters are disarmingly flawed, perhaps even grotesquely self-absorbed, but isn’t that what makes them feel like people we know—or might even be? They stumble over their contradictions with alarming precision, and in those stumbles, there is an unsettling familiarity. These are not characters you root for, but ones you recognize, maybe even reluctantly empathize with. Their humanity feels unvarnished, almost raw, and in that lies the novel's power.

Structurally, the book is a marvel. Its layers unfurl like a tarot spread—deliberate, symbolic, and ultimately illuminating. The serialized origins of Major Arcana lend it a kind of episodic rhythm, reminiscent of 19th-century novels, yet utterly contemporary in its execution. It is both homage and innovation, bridging the gaps between old forms and new sensibilities. There's a tactile charm in its pacing, like turning over cards in a deck, each one adding to the cumulative weight of its revelations.

If there’s a critique to be made, it might lie in the density of its ideas—occasionally overwhelming, occasionally indulgent—but isn’t that also part of the appeal? Major Arcana is not a novel that asks for passive consumption; it demands engagement, even surrender. It is messy, cerebral, and unapologetically itself.

Pistelli has crafted something more than a novel. He’s created an experience—a layered, labyrinthine dive into the human condition as refracted through the prism of academia, art, and ambition. Read it slowly. Let it confound and seduce you. Some books are meant to be consumed; this one feels like it consumes you right back.

Simon Magnus thinks about Simon Magnus a lot. Always the full name, always Simon Magnus his Simon Magnusself. It’s not a style I, personally, enjoy. Honestly, from the first page I could tell that I was going to struggle with this book.I persevered, through the labored language — and while I appreciate an author with a strong vocabulary, the way it was used felt forced and heavy handed. Bluntly speaking, I found it tedious, tiresome, and uninspiring.

Simon his Magnusself is profoundly unlikable. He’s someone who went viral with a comic so groundbreaking, so utterly resplendent and amazing and phantasmagorigcal it changed the whole world, and my eyes rolled so far back I had to go across the room to pick them up. But that’s the thing about books and readers. Just because I couldn’t stop sighing or cringing over every overworked sentence and moment of pompous and condescending lectures being used as exposition doesn’t mean someone else won’t read this book and enjoy it. (And maybe learn some new works because of it.)

I did not enjoy my time with this book and do not recommend it. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC.

Unfortunately I didn't understand this story or the way it was written. The writing felt a bit disjointed and the plot itself was strange.