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.

Oh boy, this one was a huge miss for me.
It was just far too disjointed, flitting from scene to scene without really building on anything. Nothing really made sense, and the overall atmosphere was confusing and irritating.
I feel like this book focused too heavily on being camp as fuck and the plot really suffered.

The story follows Johnny who is flamboyantly gay. He and his best friend, Alison—who has gone through gender realignment. They cast some sort of weird spell from a book that a crazy lady with cat eyes gave her. The spell turns out to be really powerful, and the next thing we know they're being bundled into the back of a black unmarked vehicle and driven to the Institute.
The Institute is a cross between Hogwarts and Château d'If. It's a prison for wizards, which it turns out our friends are. Nobody escapes from here, and they spend their time teaching these kids how to use magic, and then locking them up.
Obviously, we want to escape.
This proves as easy as finding out who the defectors are and driving out of the next town over. Done. Easy.

Meanwhile, however, there's this creepy Sandman, who is trying to kill Johnny in his dreams. There's some sort of plot about three head scientist wizards who have fallen out or something, it's pretty unclear. There's a unicorn that looks like a horse. There's a bunch of snobby rich kids to deal with. And there's Hunter.
Hunter is the love interest for Johnny. Only problem is he thinks he's straight. Of course he's not. Honestly, I think this guy might be gayer than Johnny and that's saying something.
We're supposed to get really invested in this relationship, but Hunter is a dick. The first thing he does when he meets Johnny is put his life in danger by trying to join one of the elite societies on campus. Then he kisses him and runs off to kiss some girl instead, 'cos he's not gay. He's actually offended that Johnny is mad about this. Then he decides he is gay after all and Johnny just fawns all over him. Back off, Johnny, the guy's a tool. 

The writing is what really bothered me about this book, though. I honestly didn't have a clue that anything could be too gay until I read this book. Everything is over the top, melodramatic, and cliched. As a bi girl myself, I quite enjoy a good gay book, but this was impossible to follow.
Johnny has these daydreams which are written as though they are legitimately happening, continue on for a couple of pages, and then get immediately dismissed as fantasies. They're confusing and annoying to read. ——Gripping my pencil, I stood up and charged to the front of the room, yanked the proctor out of his seat, got behind him, and held the point of my pencil to his throat.—— All fake. And these things don't just happen once or twice, oh no, they're littered all the way through until you don't know what's real and what isn't. 
Then there's the sheer amount of similes in the writing. Seriously, every page must have four or five of them!
Like a lemon sold off a crooked car lot
Like a tarantula
Like an ink blot on a Rorschach test
Like an ant
Like a streetlamp at dusk
Like someone had put my head in a fishing bowl
Like a shaky old cat
Like a broken animatron at Disney World
Like I’d been riding a roller-coaster
Like an old man straining his aging back
Like a couple of scared mice 
These things were everywhere! There were hardly any paragraphs without at least one. Just say what you mean already, you don't have to make a comparison to everything.

A lot of the plot took place in the dream world which, of course, means that anything goes. There were no rules and I never once believed the characters were in real danger, or felt anything like emotional attachment for them at all. I didn't like them. The only scene in the book that I though had any depth to it was right near the beginning when Alison and Johnny get the shit beaten out of them by a gang of homophobes. This seemed very real, and the anger and confusion that it resulted in was heartbreaking. It was a good powerful start, but then it quickly descended into chaos.
Johnny talks about being gay constantly. Every sentence is about how gay he is. I mean, try this one for example——I kept very still, like I was hiding from a T.rex. One that sniffed out gay kids. ——Why does that need to be there? Jurassic Park would have been a very different book if the T.rex only went after gay kids. It's completely unnecessary to point it out here. We know you're gay, Johnny, it's on the front cover, shut up about it once in a while, okay?

I'm going to wrap this up because I feel like I'm rambling and not making much sense. If that's the case, it's because the book is just written like that. It's difficult.
I love gay characters. I love camp characters. I love, love, love a good gay love interest. But I didn't love this book, and that makes me so disappointed. I wanted to love it so much.

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.

In my opinion, this book was just ok. There was nothing that great about it, but it did keep me occupied. I did enjoy the diversity of the characters in the book and the way they were portrayed, though.

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.

I wanted to like this book, really I did, but I found it mostly confusing and rushed. I'm sure many will like it, I'm just not the right reader for this book.

People should stop judging stories or books just because they come from Wattpad, because they miss stories like these.
What I liked most about the book is that they used the element of magic in a more original way than what I'm used to reading. Let's see, the general of the school of magic and young people with powers is there, but I feel that the author took a very different direction and I loved it. The whole subject of the school and the rebels became super dark and intriguing, full of conspiracies (Oh, I love it) And the story has a good rhythm in general, which takes you to the end of it almost without realizing you're finishing it. Well, at least I, I did not see it coming, I was very immersed in everything that happened.
I loved Johnny and Alison, and I liked their relative relationships with the other characters. Anyway I do not know if I bought the main love story... for the end yes, I was super happy for them, but in the middle it was a bit strange, some desciones and all that. But first love is weird, so, it's not something that bothers me too much.

If you are in the mood of magic, love, adventures and more magic you should read this book.

One of my favorite covers so colorful and the font is beautiful as well. I will be reading this soon. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

To be perfectly honest; I am very, very skeptical when it comes to Wattpad. I believe that we can find truly great stories in there, but... you know, 90 % is a trash. I wanted to read an LGBT novel, that's why I gave Gay Wizard a chance. And, as I said, as it's from Wattpad, I didn't have high hopes. But? In the end, it was better than I thought.

The main protagonist is Johnny, whose friend Alison is crazy about magic stuff. Once they both try a spell which somehow works, and because of that, they are brought to Institute, a place collecting wizards. Johnny and Alison aren't planning to stay in there, and soon they understand that there is even a bigger problem at the Institute than they would imagine.

The idea's good. But, there are many books talking about magic. And I don't mean Harry Potter or Carry On, which were both mentioned in some review I've read before. Johnny and Alison are thrown into an unknown world for magicians, and I really felt the lack of explanations. A huge lack of explanations.
For example, how the whole Institute is working. Firstly I thought that it's some kind of a magic school, and it seemed so, but then I realized that the kids aren't allowed to produce magic. Johnny was all learning himself - and those times I was wondering how the magic is working in there. Like, Johnny mentioned several times that it's hard to cast a spell, how you have to imagine it in your mind etc., but then it's pretty easy for him to build a wall in his mind so people can't read his thought. Excuse me? Feyre Archeron from A Court of Thorns and Roses took several months to learn how to protect her thoughts. I don't think it's that easy. Most of the spells I would find pretty difficul were very easy in there.
But I have to say, as I was reading further, the Institute started to make sense. So, if you're also skeptical about the world Institute represents, just keep reading. It takes some time, but it's worth it. When it came to it, I was like "Wow!"

As I said, the main character is Johnny. It wasn't hard to get used to him and I don't have anything against him, he was a nice character. Actually I'm glad it was him who was chosen to tell the story, because, apart from Blake, he's definitely my favourite.
But I couldn't stand Alison. I don't know why, I was always mad at her from how stupid she was. The friendship between her and Johnny was also a bit weird, like they were best friends, then they didn't see each other for weeks and it was fine, but then suddenly they couldn't live without themselves? I don't know.
My most favourite character is definitely Blake who made jokes about everything and I laughed the most at his scenes. But, if Gay Wizard has a Gary Sue character, it's him. Sometimes I felt like he's capable of everything, that when Johnny didn't know something, Blake always did. It was unrealistic for me.

Important in this story is also a romance between Johnny and Hunter. Personally I think that the romantic line was described well, although I think that they've fallen for each other very, very quick. But it was beautiful in the end.
There are many plot-twist which are predictable but also unpredictable. Sometimes I was a bit bored, then I wasn't, especially at the end I wanted to know what happens next. So yes, during reading I was curious, so that's the reason I'm rating this book a better 3 stars. It was better than I expected.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Wattpad Books for providing me an ebook for an honest review.

I'm a Gay Wizard has a great premise with good characters. I feel the writing has fallen short and needs a little more editing.

I received this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book. I really, truly did. Being part of the LGBTQAI+ community myself, I’m always happy to see an own voices author, and I always wish for them to succeed.

That being said, I… did not enjoy this book. The premise itself sounded interesting enough, the start of it seemed promising – and then it was just very thoroughly meh.

First off, the pacing is…. interesting. There are no “filler chapters”, something meaningful or dramatic happens in every chapter. It gets exhausting, and I found myself starting to roll my eyes at some of the things that happened. I’m 25, I assume this is a YA book (a point I’ll get into later), so this might be a case of “I’m too old for the book”, but I don’t think so. 

Secondly, the character actions in relation to the plot – this area might contain small spoilers, so please skip this if you don’t want to know anything about what happens in the story. Basically, the characters want to find the “Defectors”, which is dangerous and nobody should find out about it. And yet they… run around and ask random people conspicuous questions? Tell other kids they’ve known for all of, what, two months that they want to break out and have a way of finding the Defectors? Come on. I’m not saying they should be suspicious of everyone who crosses their path, but… a little discretion?

Thirdly, how things work. Magic: Apparently one way to do it is to close your eyes and imagine something is going to happen – and it does. That seems disappointingly easy, really. I’m not impressed with how magic works in the world, in general. Whenever any of the characters ever did magic, it always worked as intended, too. Seems fake, but okay.

And lastly, the writing itself. This may yet change, since I assume the book might still be in the editing process, so please take this part with a grain of salt. But the writing felt juvenile and younger than the supposed YA audience. If not for the (short, mostly vague) sex scene, I’d think this was a middle-grade novel. Many short sentences, just, in general, a writing style that didn’t scream “finished” to me. Attempted showing instead of telling, that still didn’t really work for me.

“Hunter scowled, balling his fists. The sight of Hunter so mad shook them, so they hurried away.”

Really? He scowled and balled his fists, and that was “so mad” that it “shook them”? I’m underwhelmed.

“I grabbed a piece of glass—it cut me. “Ow!” I dropped the shard.”

This. This is what I mean by short sentences, and that it doesn’t seem very finished to me. Again, this might change in the final version, so if it does, everything in this part should be disregarded. But basically, those few sentences made me go, “ugh” for how… yes, juvenile they seem. I could imagine a kid writing something like this in a report about what they did that weekend.

It’s disappointing that I did not enjoy the book because again, the premise is so, so interesting, and parts of the plot have a lot of potential! I actually hope that it’s just me being a picky reader and that plenty of other people will enjoy it. But I couldn’t give it more than two stars, sadly.

I was given an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a review.

First things first: THAT cover! amazing, full points for that awesome, colourful and artistic cover. 

On to the rest.

I’m a Gay Wizard is a wattpad book, and I don’t know if I subconsciously went into this one with some preconceived prejudice about what a wattad book is, i.e. After *cough cough*, but I didn’t really enjoy it. 

I don’t think there was anything inherently wrong with the plot of I’m a Gay Wizard but I did think it read like an early draft of a novel. One that needed some re-writes focused on the writing style. For me, it felt, dare I say it…like some good fanfic of an otherwise awesome book. again, I don’t think that is necessarily a huge negative mark against the book but, it just wasn’t what I was looking for right now. And perhaps this is mostly why I wasn’t a huge fan, because like I said before, the premise itself was good, interesting, intriguing. I’m here for wizards and I am especially here for gay wizards, because I feel like that’s never a combination we see in literature. I could be wrong but I’ve never come across a gay wizard. That’s why I was originally so excited to get this one from netgalley. So Santoni definitely gets points for originality, but misses the mark on the execution, in my opinion.

Read an arc of this book on net galley.. it was tagged as adult which doesn’t seem to fit right. It seems to me to read as a YA novel and when I googled the title it came up as YA fiction so that what I’m going to judge it as. The world building is wonderful and the story is a fun and hopeful romance. I loved Johnny and the novels frank honesty about the Awkwardness of adolescences and first loves. I’ve read some commentary about the dialogue being there for jokes. I like the dialogue being pithy it’s reminiscent of Joss Whedon's dialogue style. All in all it’s a novel that I would have been happy to put along side sailor moon manga and buff novels as a teen.

Thanks so much Netgalley and Wattpad Books for letting me review this novel! 

A Gay Latinx wizard novel? Yes! It’s so cool to see myself in a book that doesn’t involve some stupid stereotype of latinx people. As a kid, this book would have made it much easier for me to come out and be myself, and now other kids will have it.

I thought the writing was really good, and Melchior was a truly unsettling character. Johnny and Hunter reminded me of my first relationship. Except we didn’t fight monsters, just the metaphorical ones at our high school. 

The writer definitely knows what it is to grow up Latinx and gay and I want to thank them for putting this book out in to the world. It’s really brave to look America  in the face and have an unapologetic Latinx main character that’s gay and the hero. This writer will save lives.

This concept had a lot of potential, but it didn't live up to it. While not tagged as a YA book, it really felt like one. The single sex scene was particularly childish and just didn't feel like it felt in a novel for adults. The writing was uneven. Sometimes good and sometimes less so. I would assume there's still some rounds of editing to go after the ARC I read considering there were <editorial break>s scattered throughout. The pacing was all over the place as well but was mostly just way too fast. It felt like it was written for someone with a much shorter attention span. That's not unusual with fanfic and other stories on places like wattpad, but for a published novel I personally expect more. I liked the characters so it was sad not to have them given as much depth as they deserved.

I teach in the NYC school system with a student population that is heavily Latino. I am happy to see an own-voices YA novel that my students can relate to, and plan to use this book as a summer reading option next year.

As for the book, I was surprised what a good debut novel this is, and while there were some rough spots, that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the novel.

I often see my students reading Wattpad, and have utilized it as a teaching instrument in my classroom. As an educator, I care that my students are reading, and to be able to present them with a diverse novel, that’s both fun and engaging is very exciting.

I want to say my standout character was Johnny. Johnny is not a  stereotype. He was one of my students. That’s to be appreciated. I’ve had a million Johnny’s walk through my classroom, and clearly Santoni, as an own voices author, is able to show a Latino character with care. Johnny is three dimensional and I want to see more of him in the future. He’s just as angsty as Harry Potter. But his angst is sharper, wittier, and funnier.

I enjoyed this novel and think many of my students will enjoy it as well.

I think this will be an enjoyable read for a particular type of audience, unfortunately I am not it. 

I come from the era of Fictionpress and this novel reminded me of far too many of the original slash fiction one might have found on there. The thing is, this had the trappings of everything I love: magical school, dark secrets, cute gays but they never came together in a way that worked for me. There were glimpses of brilliance in some of the passages and the plot itself is good but I found myself skimming more often than not. I suspect part of the problem is that this was very much a serial published as a novel. Serials have a different pace compared to completed novels and it showed. When read from start to end in one go, it dragged. I found myself skipping entire scenes and at one point a chapter because I was losing interest. 

Now, the writing itself...well it felt uneven. As I stated previously there were passages that were brilliant, but there were also passages that felt really clunky. In particular the one and only sex scene where the orgasm is signified through a single page with the word "boom." It just felt very twee? And some of the banter had a forced feel, like the joke were put in because they were funny, not because it's something that worked for the conversation or the character. 

Another issue I found myself struggling with was the whole Asuras, Devas and Maras thing. I'm buddhist, so those names and concepts are not new to me but they felt more like window trappings than anything substantial. The mythos of the novel's world didn't match with the mythos of the asuras, devas or maras that we find in real life. And I felt this was really a missed opportunity, because I would have loved to read a YA fantasy novel with hindu cosmology. Instead, it really felt more like the thought process was "oh those names sound cool and mystical, let's use them." I honestly would have preferred made up names to a religion being co-opted. 

All in all, this needed someone to edit it as a novel and not a published serial and I foresee this being a problem for many wattpad published novels.