I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Wattpad Books in exchange for an honest review.

This books is a whole ton of fun. I wasn't really sure what to expect from I'm a Gay Wizard given that it is a Wattpad book and I couldn't really remember the plot when I started reading it. This is the story of Johnny and his friend Alison, two young people who are kidnapped by an institute when it's revealed they can do magic. Their powers mean that they must now attend school at this institute, although the plot focuses more on the shadowy goings-on of this world. There is also a lot of teen romance and tons of representation in here (gay Latinx main character with a trans best friend).

One of this book's greatest strengths is its creativity. To be honest, I was kind of expecting a Harry Potter rip-off but this has nothing in common with that series at all. The institute is not a fun magical school but a place of imprisonment, and the bulk of the magic system focuses on the use of a dream world. The characters are also pretty good. Some of the side characters suffer from being a little one-dimensional but Johnny was very likeable and I was rooting for him.

Sadly, I could not make it all the way through this book. This is more down to my own personal tastes than any real criticism. This book introduces a LOT of new terms that exist in this magical world and I just couldn't keep track of any of them. At the halfway point I realised I wasn't following it very well and so I just skim-read the rest. I'm not a fan of fantasy books that have lots of new terms or really convoluted plots, and sadly this one was just a bit too much.

If you can read books with those elements though, then I'm a Gay Wizard could be a good book to check out. It is definitely Young Adult and some of the elements (especially at the start) betray its origins as a Wattpad book. There are a couple of high school cliches and other small details which maybe should have been ironed out in the editing process. Overall though, I was pleasantly surprised by this book and it definitely deserves kudos for having such creativity and representation in it.

Overall Rating: 3/5

When I requested, I’m a gay Wizard by V. S. Santoni I was expecting a fun, fantastical read filled with glitter and rainbows. Unfortunately, what I got was something so far from that it wasn’t even funny.
I am an open-minded guy. I have been exposed to a myriad of different things throughout my life and I consider myself to be quite tolerant and easy going. This book triggered me, and badly too.

All my life I have been called gay, I’ve been called faggot, I’ve had paint thrown at me because of it, I have been called poofter, pillow biter, Nancy boy and most recently ‘The ass lisper’….yes. That’s right. All these derogatory names I’ve build up a resistance to, but then, I stumbled across this book which I thought was going to be a bit of light-hearted fun. There was a scene where the main character and his female friend were bashed and many, many instances of the main character being called a faggot. This really put me off reading the book, and yes, I know, I am aware, that this kind of thing happens in REAL life all the time, but it’s not something I want to read about.

I read up to this part of the book and unfortunately, I had to put it down. Due to my past experiences and things which have occurred in my personal life I chose not to continue with this book.
This book had the potential to be light hearted and fun, but for me it was unfortunately triggering and not the book for me.

It's not fair of me to rate this book, because I didn't finish it, so I'm giving it two stars for the potential it might have in the rest of the story.

I was really excited about the premise of this. A gay main character and a trans best friend who become wizards? Sign me up! However, while this was a good idea in theory, the execution of it fell kind of flat. The main character, Johnny, is gay and doesn't believe in magic. And ... that's pretty much all I know about him. He doesn't have any interests. He doesn't have any goals. I had no real reason to care about him. I kept waiting for him to give me something, to tell me what he wants so he can have a motive to drive the plot, but nothing showed up. His best friend, Alison, was a more interesting character, but even she wasn't enough to keep me interested in this story. I thought once they got to the institute, things would pick up. However, there was way too much telling instead of showing and I found myself skipping over paragraphs of details. At one point, I thought there would be an escape plan. I was ready for the plot to finally start. But nope, Johnny is more of a character who lets life happen to him. Both he and Alison fell into the routine of this institute/prison for wizards and they fell fast, as if they hadn't just been kidnapped and forced to live there until they became adults.

The pacing of the whole story is disjointed. Scenes are sometimes too quick and the transitions between them can be strange. The narrative jumps around in time as well and is often hard to keep track of. I will say, however, that I appreciated the scene where Alison was attacked. It made me uncomfortable the way it should have – because that's a real issue among the trans community and things like that should be brought to life. Ultimately, though, this story wasn't for me and I gave up 23% of the way in.

This was a fun read! I was cheering for the main couple throughout and I loved Allison a little bit too much, haha. It wasn't a five star read, and I had originally intended to read it in June (which didn't happen), but it was fun to read!

A bit random, rushed, and what was that ending?? I need answers, and more info. A little bit more insight would've been appreciated. It felt like it lacked something; the characters weren't really developed. I liked the story, I want to read a sequel if it comes out, but I want more clarity and development.
The book was cute, the magic system interesting, the twists surprising, the characters had potential. I enjoyed it. But more, a little bit more would elevate the book to 4 stars!

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

There were parts of this book I enjoyed, and parts I did not, but overall, I found it easy to read and interesting.

My favorite part of this book was the friendship between Johnny and Alison. They had their own, tiny little family, and adored each other. Their scenes remain my favorite and I love all this history and backstory that has them bonded and all of their interactions are heartwarming, in one way or another.

Johnny was the kind of character I got more information from the people around him about him than I did in his own narrative. He was hard to get a feel for as a protagonist and not very interesting, especially compared to Alison.

The love story between him and Hunter was very rushed but they had excellent chemistry and I thought they were very sweet together.

The pacing went from rushed, so I was completely confused with the plot or dragged on, so I was wondering when anything relevant would happen.

This was one of my least favorite magic school books, not because I hated the school, but because we never really got a feel for the school. Or any kind of education on how magic worked. The magic in the book was hard to follow. It felt unimportant.

The queer rep was great!!! I didn't love the parts with homophobia and transphobia, but they were some of the realest parts. Johnny never felt like the Gay Friend (tm) and Alison never felt like she was trans for the Angst. There were other minor queer characters as well, and I loved seeing it be mentioned casually as well throughout the story.

To sum up, I think this book should have either been longer or fewer story lines.

Thanks NetGalley and V.S. Santoni for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review!

I wanted to enjoy I'm a Gay Wizard more than I did. I liked it, but I wasn't anywhere near in love with it.

I was initially attracted to this book by the cover and the title. The cover is super colourful, the title makes a pretty clear statement and hey, if it's a book about wizards then you know I am in.

What I was expecting from this novel was completely the opposite of what I got. This isn’t some twist on Harry Potter but with gay, latinx characters, it isn’t a fun and magical world where you learn spells, enjoy your time with your magical friends, and get to play super fun made up sports on broomsticks. The wizarding 'school' here is essentially a prison, and the whole thing to me felt like a really deep metaphor about what it might feel like to be 'in the closet'. Intentional or not, from that perspective, it's pretty powerful. Other than that, the fantastical world we are in is horrifying, but feels a little confused and disjointed. It certainly invites more questions than answers, and it's what I struggled with the most when trying to connect to this book completely.

The characters for me, although I liked them, didn’t see much development, and a lot of it felt fairly obvious, with some relationships feeling more real than others. When alone with their thoughts, I felt their pain and empathised with them, but for me it just needed a bit more. Maybe we will see that as the series goes on.

There was one part that did take me wholly by surprise and I was shocked and exclaiming wtf out loud! But then a couple chapters later I kind of took all of those feelings back again and couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

Overall I would give this 3 stars, for a debut I thought it was pretty good, with so much potential for the future!

One of my favorite things about Harry Potter fandom is how the community has made the Harry Potter world its own, writing fanfic that's far more diverse and rich than canon. I am delighted that we're starting to see echoes of that in other published fiction, though obviously there's still a lot of room for growth.

IAGZ adds some much needed representation to the magical school genre. Johnny is a gay, Latinx teenager. His best friend Alison is trans. They go on a dark, magical adventure, and that's awesome. This might be exactly the book that someone needs.

I take significant issue with the rest of the book though.

The characters progress along the plot without challenging how they're being shepherded. For example, Johnny and Alison seem to barely talk the miracle of being able to float a sheet of paper. Johnny hardly challenges Alison about trying a mysterious magic spell from a book given to her by a creepy cat-eyed lady. Johnny agrees to rush the magical fraternity with Hunter. Linh and Johnny are like, "Sure, okay," when the librarian gives them a ridiculous, dangerous task before he'll help them. This happens again and again, and it was such a frustrating read that left me feeling railroaded.

The magic system has some real promise but felt underdeveloped. Later in the book, one of the characters explains to Johnny that there are two ways to cast magic: the inferior and more dangerous version that most first-generation wizards use, and the superior method used by legacy wizards. The first entails just imagining what you want to happen. The second involves very precise gestures, like manipulating the gears and pulleys of reality. Most of the magic we see in the novel falls into the first category, which ends up being problematic because it feels like there aren't any rules to whatever magic is in place. When there's no system, it's hard to emphasize with characters when they do "hard" magic or think of a creative magical solution to a problem. I think the distinction about the two magic systems came too late, and there was too little engagement with what it means to have these two systems-- the socio-political ramifications, how much more dangerous the first system is, how the non-legacy students don't seem to be TAUGHT the second system… there's a lot of potential for a really intriguing set-up, and it felt like it didn't get addressed.

Similarly, the entire magical world has some neat elements (particularly some language from Hindu/Buddhist traditions, which is underexplored in Western fantasy novels), but we get so little. Sometimes I can tell that a writer has a really thoughtfully developed world and selectively chooses what to share with their audience, and this imparts a sense of richness. In this case, I don't feel like the author really spent the time to think about the complications of, say, having the legacy and non-legacy wizards on the same campus, why "Smiths" exist to prevent students from leaving campus and what their true motivations might be, why it was determined a particular event needs to happen every 30 years and how such a system develops, what relatively easy access to the cintamani means, and so on.

I want representation, but I also want it to be paired with a strong plot and rich world-building.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2910454185

3.5 🌟🌟🌟

Ok so it took me a little while to get into this book. I think I was forcing myself to keep reading up until around 20%,. Then I got hooked.

I liked the plot of the story however, I feel that a lot of things were rushed. The relationship between Johnny and Hunter.. I mean they kissed once, Hunter is still in the closet at this point and yet a few pages later he’s declaring that he wants to be Johnny’s boyfriend. Still I’m not gonna complain too much here because I loved hunter and Johnny 😍
The ending I felt was also rushed. I loved the twist that was thrown in at the end, the curse! But I feel like from the time they find Gasper to the last page just tried to cram waaay to much into it.

I loved most of the characters.. Johnny, Hunter and Blake mainly. For some reason I didn’t like Alison at all, I don’t know if this is to do with me or maybe the way she was written.. but to me she was just a bit of a bitch. And pretty boring tbh. I feel like her only purpose in the book was forcing Johnny to cast the spell at the start which lands them at the institute.

Overall I did actually really enjoy this book!

This is a fun read! The writing can be clunky and purple in places, with a lot of teen references that felt were very forced, and I found that the opening section was deeply confusing to the point I nearly put it down, but once the book got going, it was a really enjoyable ride.

The opening of the book is strange and I felt, quite poorly managed, as each chapter jumps about in the timeline, but only identified the times by their relation to another event which had yet to be explained (one hour before extraction, etc). Without a frame of reference for what 'extraction' was, I struggled to line thing up. I also really disliked the backstory chapters that showed violence against the trans character - I felt this was not needed at all other than to provide a reason for her to try witchcraft, but that reason could easily have been something (anything!) else that didn't rely on a transphobic attack. It just felt gratuitous - you're telling me that a witchy queer goth girl wouldn't just try witchcraft for the heck of it?

I did very nearly give up on this book, but I'm glad I persevered because once the characters had arrived at magic school, the story took off. Honestly, you could cut everything before the MC wakes up at magic school, and lose absolutely nothing from this story, but gain some safer, fluffier rep for queer kids. Anyway, once we get past that bit, gone are the extremely try-hard "hello fellow youths" references to pop culture, and hello to evil organisations, dreamworlds, rushing a wizard frat, and a burgeoning relationship.

The characters are stronger than the plot, which is interesting. The main character, Johnny, is a Latinx boy who is gay, and his best friend, Alison, is a trans girl who was honestly one of the best trans characters I've read, because apart from that one flashback chapter, exactly 0 of her problems revolve around her being trans. She's a very positive character and one I think it's good for teens to see - she's confident, friendly, loving, and powerful, and both Johnny and their new friends accept her wholeheartedly. She gets a cute romance, too. However, with the violence against her, I would hesitate to recommend this to my trans friends, which is a real, real shame. We also have Hunter, a sports-loving farm boy, whom Johnny can't seem to stop thinking about, and that romance is very cute too. As I say, the plot is really secondary to watching these characters interact - it's exciting, but it's also fluffy and nice, and we need more rep like this.

Three out of five stars, but if this was reworked to remove/improve the beginning, it would be four or five!

OK, so I wasn't completely sure what I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised that this book didn't rely on some of the wizarding tropes that exist out there. Sure, the main character gets sucked inside a wizarding world and ends up attending a wizarding academy, but this place is no Hogwarts.

The reading was delightful and kept me guessing what would happen next. In this regards, it's similar to another famous wizarding series. In many respects, the central character's sexuality is almost a backdrop rather than the focus of the story itself. One of my biggest critiques of a lot of LGBTQIA literature is that coming of age stories are all angst and coming out and no story. Instead, the characters in this book deal with coming out and their sexualities and gender identity, but those issues are hung on the backdrop of the crazy wizarding world the characters are sucked into. For this reason, I'm really glad this book is getting published and will hopefully be read by a lot of people.

As a note, I did get the opportunity to read this book prior to publication. However, the opinions of this review are 100% mine and were not affected by the publisher or author in any way.

First! The good stuff! This book was a lot of fun to read. The friendly/snarky banter between the characters gave me life and made me laugh out loud more than once.

Santoni has come up with a clever concept: in this world, the first time you use magic sparks a terrifying event. Anyone with magical ability is abducted and taken to an institute under the guise of being trained and protected. But, the reader finds out early on that’s not really what is going on. Basically, Johnny is abducted and incarcerated. The life he was taken from is basically wiped out: his family won’t remember him, and it will be as if he never existed.

The idea of young people being taken from their homes for something beyond their control and incarcerated rang a little bit true in light of what has been going on in the US recently.

There is a diverse group of characters in this novel. Johnny is a young gay Latinx teen with stretched earlobes, a fierce heart and a penchant for hilarious thoughts. I loved this own-voices character. He was authentic and funny, charming and bumbling. It was a joy to read about Johnny falling in love for the first time, and finding his way to courage in a crazy world.

Johnny’s best friend Ali is a trans woman. This character suffers the harsh cruelty of life with strength and dignity. I adored her friendship with Johnny and their devotion to one another.

Santoni has some great building blocks at the beginning of this novel. This is a magical world where magic is scientifically based (not unlike the world created by Victoria Lee in the Fever King). What I wanted to see explored more thoroughly was the unique clockwork structure of magic and how it was almost machinery-like. I felt as though I didn’t really get enough information to understand it as well as I wanted to.

The magical powers were a bit confusing to me. It was a random spell that ignited the latent abilities in Ali and Johnny and then there was really nothing further written in the novel about how the young Wizards learned how to do more magic… they just … did. That was a bit unsatisfying given how much of a great idea the clockwork magical world was.

There were a lot of pop culture references scattered throughout which I think may date the book prematurely. There were some times during the book when it felt a little bit like fanfiction to me. That won’t bother some people, but that always pulls me out of a story no matter how good it is.

All in all, this was a fun read with some really likable characters. It’s got a Gay wizard, monsters, epic battles, and a love story! What more could you want in a summer read? I will look forward to reading more by this author.

I really wanted to love this book. I loved the idea of the story and that the main character was LGBTQ, and Latino. The story follows our main character Johnny and his best friend Alison as they are taken to an Institute where wizards are trained, or so they are told. It is basically a prison, however, and they spend much of their time trying to find a way out. The romance was cute, although I think maybe should have been a little more flushed out.

My real problem with this book was the pacing and writing style. The plot seemed a little bit uneven to me, and I did have trouble with the format. These things could very well be changed in the final version, however, so this may be a moot point. The pacing seemed off to me as well. Some parts were rushed, and others seemed to drag out unnecessarily. I also thought that the amount of descriptions throughout the book made it more difficult to follow the plot. Often I wasn’t sure what was true and what was exaggerated, because they were used so often. All in all though, it was a cute, fast read!

I was given an advanced reader's copy via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my
own.

While this was fun, sort of Hogworts done black ops, I think they could have come up with a better title. Not sure why the MC's sexuality needed title mention. Enjoyable young adult fare for beach reading.

I’m a Gay Wizard - there’s so much about this book I liked and some things I didn’t love. I gave it a 3/5 stars. While I appreciate the queerness and the visibility of a trans person - there was some thinks lacking in character development for me. The world building was a little iffy but I could overlook that. However, I will offer up a trigger warning for the gay hate crime that appears early on in the story. I’m not upset about that, because queer people do experience these types of situations. All in all - more character development would have helped tremendously.

This was definitely a mixed bag for me, but I did like enough of it to give 3 stars.

What I liked:
~Johnny -- he's a likable narrator, and although some of his character development is shaky because of the weak plot and world building, I found him sympathetic and definitely enjoyed spending time with him.
~Hunter -- probably because we're seeing him through Johnny's eyes, Hunter's also very likable.
~the creativity -- I thought the magic aspects were very innovative and interesting, despite the poor execution and clarification.

What was okay:
~the overall plot -- it had tension, but the pacing was definitely off. But I kept reading (even though I skimmed the last 15%) to find out how it turned out.

What didn't work well for me:
~the world building -- to me, it was just plain confusing. I felt like the author didn't really take the time to set up the rules of this world, and because of that, things seemed to happen willy-nilly. For instance, because they were non-Legacy, Hunter, Blake, Alison, Johnny, and Linh had no magical training...and yet, whenever they needed to do something magical, someone would somehow come up with the right response. That was beyond frustrating to me and seemed not only too easy but also lazy. Additionally, I had no idea where anyone stood in terms of 'good' guys and 'bad' guys. It honestly seemed like everyone was gray because there was no clear goal laid out. What's the point of this magical world?
~the character development -- I think this is directly related to the world building -- because the world was so poorly designed, the characters didn't really have much opportunity to develop much. Johnny stayed pretty much the same from beginning to end, and all the other characters remained static, as well (with the possible exception of Hunter when he came out as gay).
~the writing style -- I wouldn't necessarily call it purple prose, but man, the descriptions used muddied this book even more. Johnny didn't experience anything in a 'typical' manner, so when he was explaining what happened, I often couldn't tell if it was real or simply his exaggerated imagination.

All in all, I liked the basic concept and I liked Johnny, but I thought it could've been executed much better (and I wish it was -- I'd love to learn more about this world).

I loved the diversity and representation in it. But there are a few violent scenes, that are a result of homophobia and transphobia which can potentially be triggering for some people. I liked the book, the story — but Johnny seemed a little passive to me, and I wasn’t a fan of him choosing to go by Johnny either.

I received a netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I adored this book! It was everything I could have ever wanted from a book called “I’m a Gay Wizard”. I loved the characters and I enjoyed their growth throughout the story.

This book really made me want more and I was excited when I saw that it will continue! I cannot wait for more Hunter and Johnny! They are so sweet and awkward and I love them so much!

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own and have not been influenced by this opportunity.

This was such a fresh and fun read that I wanted to do for pride month. I loved the writing style since it wasn't too pretentious (in a very good way). I found the characters likeable and overall interesting.
It's not the book of the year by all means. It did entertain me though!

I’m a Gay Wizard is a young Latino guy called Johnny and his friend Allison, who after trying to cast a magic spell to get revenge on their bullies, end up taken away to an Institute where, as they are told, wizards are trained. Their families have memories about them erased and they are not allowed to go home, all in the name of their safety. Needless to say, they’re not too happy about being basically kidnapped so they start to look for a way out, making a few friends on the way.

From the synopsis, I imagined Johnny and Allison will be taken to an actual school but I quickly realized it was more of a prison than a school. The students were not allowed to use their magic, internet access was restricted to one forum regulated by the Institute and there was gossip about wizards being taken away and experimented on. That’s still an interesting concept and rather distinct from the usual take on the school of the magic trope. The whole book, however, seemed a little rushed. The pacing was off and everything felt hurried. The characters, despite being likable and pretty diverse (there were two gay boys, a trans girl) weren’t exactly memorable. The whole thing felt like reading an unedited fanfiction than a book. Plus, it should definitely be marketed as either young adult or new adult.

I did enjoy myself reading the book. It was a quick read with a lot of action and a good premise. However, the whole experience didn’t really feel memorable to me.