Name: The Wise and the Wicked
Rating: 3.33 (3 reviews)

I received this book for free from Fantastic Flying Book Club in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Ohhhhhhhhh boy. The Wise + the Wicked is like Anna-Marie McLemore meets Noami Novak in contemporary America with cell phones. Lead by a critical despondent broke-ass nihilist with sticky fingers.

Gods, did I love it. Check it out. Read a sample. Enter to win a copy. All below ⬇

About the wise + the wicked:

IMHO: the wise + the wicked

What's Inside:

Feels like if Noami Novak wrote contemporary with queers + cell phones

No dead naming!!!

Honest ongoing consent talks

Love how the magic worked with Dov. It's so easy to be trans* inclusive!!!

D'awwww the cousin romance misunderstanding

Ruby's family is working poor

Technology included

Ruby loves science and Carl Sagan

Ruby is SO relatable. I love her.

Love how fierce & direct Talia is

Love CeeCee's bright style, optimism, and support

Dov grew on me (that lunch tray scene bugged me, okay?) & adore them as a couple

Cousin best friends

Sisters raising sisters

I loved it all right up until the last little bit. They're all honest flawed kids struggling with magic, history, and secrets. Adults, we really need to be thinking about what we claim to keep from kids "to protect them". More like make us uncomfortable...

The romances worked on so many levels for me. Too bad we couldn't see more of CeeCee + boo.

I didn't want to stop reading and couldn't wait to pick it up again. Curiostiy was killing. Much like Ruby and her podcast.

The ending & I did not mesh well. I'm with Ruby on this one...Which was the point of course. Like, I get it but it wasn't satisfying.

I think the kids couldn't done more during the fight and there'd be more possibilities if we knew more about this wide world.

I think teens will like how it concludes more than us fuddy duddys. And as the days pass and I think about it more, I appreciate what Podos did here. I'm okay with not getting a sequel since it fits so well.

I'll def be watching for more from Podos. We need so much more of what she's serving up!

Read a sample with the first three chapters HERE! It includes two of my favorite quotes!

fav quotes from the wise + the wicked:

They welcomes them into this unextraordinary little house, listened to them, counseled them with the gif that remained to the Chernyavsky: the empathetic, righteous rage of women who knew what it meant to have everything taken away from them.

Her cousin's friends stopped all at once, a school of ish scared by the cry of the Common Loon.

Pearls form around a speck of grit to protect the oyster, and so to protect us from what we can't yet understand, stories grow around a grain of truth.

It wasn't really the having that made her feel powerful. It was the taking.

[...] if time is a prize you want to win, you must prepare to lose.

[Her sisters] believed they were safe as long as they were small, as if submission had ever really protected women.

About the Author:

Giveaway:

Prize: Win a copy of THE WISE AND THE WICKED by Rebecca Podos (INT)

Start Date: 22nd May 2019
End Date: 5th June 2019

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Tour Schedule:

This review was originally posted on The Layaway Dragon

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

This is going to be a review in Three Acts. Because I had three very distinct experiences while reading this book, so... seems legit I guess.

Act One: Oh Crap I Might DNF
Okay I hate DNFing, we know this. But Val suggested I call it quits, because she didn't love it, and honestly when Val tells me to DNF something I really need to listen because every time, I regret not listening, and here we go again. The problem was, I was woefully disconnected to the characters, especially at the beginning. Ruby's obsession with her cousin was high key creeping me out, and I just kind of... didn't like her a ton? She did grow on me as the book went on, at least.

The thing in the first 1/3 or so is, nothing seemed to happen. Ruby's great-aunt died and I was kind of underwhelmed like... cool, an ancient lady that I have no emotional connection to died, so that's sad, but I wasn't exactly full of feels. The plot seemed a little stagnant- you knew there was a family secret and such, but the stakes just weren't there.

Act 2: Things Are Picking Up!
So I started to get a bit invested! This was good news! It still wasn't setting the world on fire for me, but at least I was starting to feel a little bit of concern for Ruby, and the plot/secret thing were being fleshed out more, so I ignored Val and kept on keeping on. There was some romance, a sisterly bond that was getting more developed, and the cousin thing started to be less creepy and more sisterly/friendly.

Act 3: Are You Kidding Me with This End?
Okay here's where I get ragey. I was bored, then things were a little interesting, and then the end of the book infuriated me a lot. To the point where I kind of regretted reading the book. First, the ending was way too quick for the overall slow pacing of the book. But mostly, I was mad because... I'll put this in spoiler tags, though Idk if it's actually a spoiler, but let's just be safe okay? Okay. It doesn't actually end? It's like... akin to a cliffhanger, except it's a standalone and no one asked for that. Okay, fine, maybe some people will enjoy the whole VERY open ending, but I am just not one of them.

Bottom Line: Parts of it were good, and I enjoyed that Ruby had a lot of character growth, but other than that I was kind of underwhelmed. And salty about the end bits.

The Wise and the Wicked

by Rebecca Podos