Review: “Elusive Magic”
This book found its way to me via an author’s newsletter that featured other books. I chose it because I was in the mood for a good women’s fiction.
The Premise
40-something-year-old Josie is at a crossroads in her life. After a break-up, she struggles to get over her ex Thomas who is still in her life. Then, when she quits her job, her friend offers her an opportunity to open her own restaurant. As Josie launches into the creation of this dream she’s always had, along the way she also tries to figure out her dating life post-Thomas and post-divorce. Childless womanhood has left her with an emptiness she’s not able to understand fully, and she tries to fill it with her new career and her female friendships. Fortunately she’s got a great batch of friends — but are they enough to help her through this midlife crisis, and does she really need love in her life, or is her cat enough?
The Pros
This was a good, heart-warming read about female friendships and womanhood at a later stage of life. I liked how the friendships had blossomed through the years, and how the friends truly supported each other — helping build new careers for each other, setting up a support system to help with a new baby, and showing up when they were really needed even though they all had their busy lives. It was great to see such a great show of female camaraderie and true friendship, even though they each had their quirks. I also loved how we were able to see glimpses of the lives of the other characters through the main character Josie, as it felt like a fully fleshed cast that I could easily imagine being made into a film or movie.
The Cons
I liked this book, but admittedly it took me awhile to get into it. I wasn’t sure what to expect as the women’s fiction genre can be open-ended with no foregone conclusion. Eventually I did grow to enjoy Josie’s journey of maturity — even at her stage of life, post-divorce and at 40-something, but the pacing at the beginning was a bit of a slow start for me. The writing style had quite a lot of very long introspective passages that just kind of said where the character’s mind was at, rather than showing the reader through actions or events — a shame, really. It’s not my preferred style of writing, so it took awhile to get used to these ebbs and flows to appreciate the story.
Conclusion
This was a good read and will certainly tick all the boxes for less picky readers, but I wished for a bit more to take me all the way there. Nevertheless it is a story that will resonate with many women, and I think there is a lot they may relate to here in any of the female characters’ lives. I would recommend to other readers, and I look forward to other books by this author. I’d love to give her a chance to see if another book could give me *all* the feels rather than just a bit of the tingles I felt with this one!
