Nobody's Magic
This book tells 3 stories about 3 separate women, Suzette, Maple, and Agnes, all born with Albinism.
Suzette’s Story
Suzette lives a pretty sheltered life following a traumatic experience in her early childhood. She spends the majority of her time with her parents and with her Best friend Drina but she’s struggling with coming into her own. Concerned with how she’s perceived as spoiled she starts to want more for herself. Her parents, mainly her father, are over protective and stunting her growth into adulthood. She connects with Doni, a guy in his late 20’s who works at her dad’s shop, and her mentality begins to shift causing a rift in all of her closest relationships.
Maple’s Story
Maple is struggling with the unexpected and tragic loss of her mother. For the majority of her life her mother was really all she had aside from her grandmother, who she didn’t have a great relationship with. She has her theories as to who is responsible but doesn’t believe that the PD will do the work to find who did it. After a fight with her grandmother she left her home, moved into a room at her job at a local hotel. She meets Chad and after a chance encounter befriends him as they both find ways to cope with their respective loses.
Agnes’ Story
Agnes is struggling with the direction of her life. Between a childhood riddled with being bullied for how she was born, a non-existent relationship with her sister, and an overwhelming desire to avoid returning home she’s desperate to make do on her own. she takes a job as an exam grader. While there she meets Prime, who’s convinced that Agnes is the woman he’s been waiting for. After finding out that she didn’t get a position she sought after, she makes some questionable (and probably illegal) decisions and tries to make a break for it. She find an unexpected support in Prime who is willing to uproot his entire life to Texas just to be with her.
My overall thoughts…
*Beware… Spoilers below.*
Ok. I struggled through this one. These stories were riddled with dragging story lines which all ended with more questions than answers. Despite that, I found Suzette’s story most interesting. Her upbringing caused her to have this very childlike tone. I had to remind myself over and over again that I was reading about a character in her 20’s not a teen. Her parents were petty people who didn’t really know if they wanted her to grow up or not.
They spent too much time using her as a pawn and trying to pit her against the other parent. At first I really liked her relationship with Drina, she was the over protective best friend. But she quickly became hard to like when she flipped out of nowhere, and at the end it’s revealed that she’s had a thing for Suze all this time but it still doesn’t redeem her for me. Doni was the only character that I kind of liked all throughout. His character was pretty well fleshed out and I liked how he handled his situation-ship with Suze.
Maple’s story was a hard one. It lost me as soon as the police showed up at her grandma’s house using pictures from a porno that her mom was in as a way to identify her. Yes… you read that right.
It was at this moment I damn near put the book down because I couldn’t deal but I kept going because… I don’t know really. Maple ends up pulling a gun on the boyfriend that she suspects is the reason her mother was killed which didn’t seem to really fit her character. Then she turns around and throws herself at Chad, decides to show him the porn that her mom was in (that she has watched already a few times), then tries to throw herself at him again. This ends with her and Chad eventually bonding/grieving their respective losses together. I don’t really have words for how we get from point A to point B because while it technically made sense, it didn’t. This story could’ve gone a million different ways and I just didn’t like this direction.
And Agnes. The story I struggled through the most mainly because I was bored. A little sister in her sister’s shadow, Unloved by her father and trying to prove that she’s somebody… had potential but I don’t understand why this story went the direction that it did. Agnes made a mess, drags Prime into it, has him runaway to Texas under the guise of “starting a new life together” just to have him deliver her back home to the family that she’s trying to get away from in the first place who are the same as they’ve always been.
All in all, I hate to say it but I didn’t really like this book. Every story seemed to drag and they all felt incomplete in the end. I didn’t find myself really connecting with any of these characters and I just didn’t get what I was expecting. Ultimately, I think this book wasn’t for me but if you’ve read it or are planning on it let me know what you think!