The Grimoire of Grave Fates / Hanna Alkaf & Margaret Owen, Editors / Book Review

Professor Septimus Dropwort is dead, murdered. Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary's best and brightest are the suspects--all of them. 

A prestigious and historic magic academy, Galileo has undergone a recent overhaul in image, rebranding to be a bit more... expansive, both in theory and in practice. But not everyone is on board with the increasing diversity on campus. As a member of the old guard, it isn't like Professor Dropwort was well-liked. Everyone--yes, everyone--has a motive in this case. Anyone could be guilty. Maybe they all are.

Eighteen authors follow eighteen of Galileo's top students as the murder investigation begins in this race to uncover the truth--and cover their own bases in the process. 

Thoughts

I wanted to love this book so much, and I do still love the concept. But the execution... it just didn't come together. The natural diversity, the abundance of magic, and the myriad of voices that come together when working with so many great authors makes this great. But the story wasn't there, and the story is what counts at the end of the day.

Pros

• Casual Diversity: The beautiful thing about having so many authors come together is that the authenticity of their experiences shine through. These authors are all so incredibly different, and their characters represent that well. Passions, identities, cultures come together into one big, messy experience, and that diversity of thought feels so natural, so effortless. These thoughts and ideas clash and comingle in a way that feels both real and hopeful, something that could happen and should happen (as much as anything could and should happen in a realm of magic). It was a pleasure to sink into a world where anybody and everybody can be what they want. So much magic exudes from these pages, magics familiar and not, and that's beautiful. 

• Text Chains: This is a school. People talk. Teens talk, and that happens here. Behind the scenes, text chains are blowing up, a thousand voices and secrets and conspiracies being shared between students. And we get to be privy to these text convos as well between each "chapter." These text chains not only add a bit of levity and humor to the text but they act as a throughline, connecting characters and places as we hop from one person to the next in this long investigation. That's a great device to employ, and it's employed well. 

• Ending: It all comes together in the end, believe it or not. So many authors, so many characters, so many types of magic... and all the loose threads get knotted up into a great reveal, a classic villain-spilling-secrets scene, and a messy (in a good way) conclusion. I wish the journey to this end was as smooth as the ending itself, but at least I found myself somewhat satisfied when I closed this book at the end. 

Cons

• Anthology Blah: This familiar anthology woe is, unfortunately, only accentuated in this book. Some of these stories are great, enticing snippets of vivid life and characters. Others are not quite as great. Because these stories come back to back to back to complete one overall landscape of plot, this big picture comes out somewhat blah. These stories and these styles are all unique and different, but they don't come together to form a particularly compelling picture. The concept is great, but the execution is, unfortunately, predictable (i.e. predictably bad). 

• Forgettable Figures: I found it very hard to remember who was who and what was what in this book. Each chapter is told by a different author and in a different perspective. Though descriptions of characters are consistent throughout, what each author chose to emphasize about personality, outer appearance, and overall importance meant that it was hard to remember characters. Name alone, in a world this full of characters, doesn't really do. It's not a fun reading experience to have to wrack your brain to remember who so-and-so was again. The format here means you never really get your footing in this world, and the characters are an unfortunate casualty of that. 

• Lost Plot: This book starts strong and ends strong. Don't get me wrong on that. It does come full circle. But the in-between part is where this book is particularly taxing. There are too many plots happening in only little snippets. The overall plot gets lost in the tangents, and that made me sad. Because I absolutely adored this world, and I absolutely adored some of these stories. Instead of creating one big picture, I wish this collaborative effort was used as a springboard for a whole bunch of stories, authors all working together to create a series of individual books wrapped up in character and culture in this great, multicultural world of magic. As it was, the individuals and their personal woes meant that the book dragged, the storyline forgotten, and that made me so, so sad. Because what's the point of a book that isn't going to dig into characters and isn't going to provide a compelling plot?  

Rating

⭐⭐⭐

3/10

Erstwhile fans of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series might like dipping their toes into this new magic school. Fans of Janice Hallett's The Appeal will love sitting in the investigator's shoes once again in this murder mystery. 

Details

Publisher: Delacorte Press
Date: June 6, 2023
Series: N/A

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Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.