Every book I read by Gailey keeps showing improvement. In this one, here usual interesting high concept and world building was matched by fully fleshed out characters who all had room to breathe. Although I'm not a teenage girl (and never was), I loved the strength of the bonds between the main friend group. Sure this is a book about the power (for good and bad) of magic but it's really about the power (for good!) of friendship. As a side note, I loved the portrayal of the protagonists parents as clued in, emphatic, kind, and loving. And this book had one of the most interesting (and touching) coming out scenes you will ever read.

Sarah Gailey is an incredible author. The writing style flows so nicely that you just can’t stop reading. This book is about friendship and how to accept love and support from others. This story also touches on the drama of teenagers and learning and accepting who you are. The story is somehow dark and uplifting at the same time. The relationship between these 6 friends is one to make anyone jealous. The magic was so different from anything else I’ve ever read. Each character’s magic is different from the others and they all learn together how to use it, they also learn that magic comes with a price.
I love how they are all such good friends despite how different they are. This book does a great job at representation, including different races and sexual preferences. This is an all around acceptance story which makes you stop and think about accepting others and accepting the support and love from friends and family. This was a great read!

What an interesting spin on magical girl groups! I loved the female friendship in this one! Gailey always does a great job of showing various kinds of magic and ways that women can bond!

When We Were Magic is fun, heartfelt, and something I'd recommend to anyone starting a new chapter of their life. Sarah Gailey tackles personal changes that can never be reversed, the pressure to conform to an old idea of you that people have held onto, and learning how to accept love and friendship when you don't necessarily think you deserve it. I loved how all of the friendships were explored thoroughly throughout the book, so that no one person was set apart from the group of six amazingly unique and wonderful teenage witches. There were definitely moments in the book that made me cry, and I liked that things weren't wrapped up neatly. Some things are left unresolved and Alexis (along with her friends) has to make her peace with that, and find a way to move forward anyways. This book surprised me in the best way and I'm so glad I took a chance on it.

In theory, Alexis knows that she can rely on her friends for anything. I mean they’ve all been keeping their magic a secret for years. Putting that theory to the test, when that same magic results in one dead body, Alexis truly knows who her best friends are: they’re the ones that help her hide the body.

As Alexis, Iris, Paulie, Maryan, Marcelina, and Roya struggle with everything they still don’t know about their magic as well as the consequences of trying to right the wrong their magic wrought, they’ll learn that the best chance they have of getting out of this mess, is together.

When I first read the premise for Sarah Gailey’s When We Were Magic I immediately thought that it sounded like an awesome contrast to their book Magic for Liars which released last year. While it’s not officially, I do like the idea that this time around Sarah Gailey is writing from the perspective of the magical students, in this case specifically from Alexis’s point of view. At various points I got major The Craft meets Heathers with some Big Little Lies thrown in vibes.

And I just absolutely love how magic is such a metaphor for almost everything. Here it works in a literal sense in that they all have magical abilities, but it’s also the idea of this part of yourself that doesn’t fit into what is considered “normal”. Something that you feel you have to hide, but then you find other people who are like you, who also have magic. And it’s about this wonderful, unbreakable, unshakeable bond that forms. This love that forms.

This kind of universal idea of figuring out where you fit – who you are and who you want to be – also plays out over the most tumultuous time in many a teenager’s life: when they’re getting ready to leave home on their own and start adulting. For Alexis this means, hopefully, finally telling Roya how she feels about her.

Alexis was an interesting choice for narrator, I think, because she kind of starts out very unassuming. And I mean that she can clearly see her friends and their abilities, but she doesn’t see herself clearly, she doubts herself a lot. She doesn’t believe that Roya can have the same feelings for her, she doesn’t believe her magic shines as bright as everyone else’s. So besides showing readers this awesome group of young women supporting and being there for one another, we get to see Alexis start to fully realize how much power she holds in the weight of her decisions whether good or bad.

Honestly, I really wanted more time spent with the girls and their magic. I loved the way it manifests differently with each girl. They all have a general ability, but also something that is their strong suit. Because there’s still so much about their magic that they don’t know, I often felt like the exploration aspect of their abilities gets overshadowed by what they already know they are capable of in trying to rewrite the wrong done.

Also, a big drawback for me is the fact that I didn’t think the ratio of conflict to consequences was even. And when we’re talking about the loss of life, for me, the counter-action should be a pretty close equivalent, and I didn’t feel that punch as much as I think I should have.

Overall, I’ve really been taken in by the magic that Sarah Gailey has created. Offering a very real look at high school life, with wonderful and varied representation.

A group of teenagers, who happen to be magic, must cover up one their spells that has gone awry. It was nice to read about a group of diverse teenage girls who were support of one another. Good YA supernatural read that deals with sexuality and becoming oneself.

I have read Sarah Gailey's other adult books (and novellas) and think they did a great job adapting to YA.

I was given a e-galley from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I adored this book. The Practical Magic vibes were so good, and I fell in love with the flawed, raw group of witches the story centers around. The worldbuilding was strong, the story was fast paced, and the characters were inclusive and relatable and real. Highly recommend.

I have never laughed this much within the first few pages of a book. I mean, it starts with an exploded dick, and these are girls with magical abilities who use the quiet coyote to settle themselves, and they head right into the ways that different identities and intersectionalities experience privilege, and I love it. There’s the right amount of heavy laced with humor and nonchalance that makes it relatable and thoroughly enjoyable to read.

How do we navigate who we are when we’ve lost a part of ourselves? Does it make us an entirely new person? After the whole Josh incident – and their multiple attempts to fix it – Alexis and her crew are changed forever. In their attempt to cover their tracks, each of them (except Maryam) lose something that ultimately makes them who they are. Alexis, being our narrator/main main character/resident ball of anxiety, takes not only her own personal hits, but feels each of her friends’ losses as her own. The Josh thing was a complete accident, but it terrifies her that she was even capable of that power, and when her friends step in and help her, she has the whole “I don’t deserve my friends and love and other good things” crisis that is just so applicable to the teen experience.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they’re kind of…witches. They don’t actually call themselves that, but yenno. One of the main reasons that this book was so thoroughly fun for me was the writing. It’s written almost in a stream of consciousness/narrator vibe while there are these huge things happening, but it wasn’t in a weird disorienting way if that makes sense. I loved the underlying humor that came with reading it like a teen diary.

But the main reason to love When We Were Magic is the characters themselves.

Lemme just say, the Josh thing happened because Alexis wanted to make Roya jealous and make her admit her feelings for Alexis because Alexis didn’t wanna say it first AND IF THAT AIN’T THE MOST TEEN THING YOU’VE EVER READ I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS. Alexis can communicate with animals and I think she’s the most afraid of her magic, or rather, what she could do with it. Alexis is reckless and kind and the smallest bean. She’s quick to take responsibility and slow to accept love, and while it gets frustrating sometimes, I’m not sure I’d love her as much if it was the other way around.

Marcelina, my Filipina! My goth (but don’t call her that), tree-hugging queen. Her magic lets her literally talk to trees and I don’t think you realize that is one of my dreams. Her magic happens in quiet moments, and it has a sense of certainty and direction. The real Marcelina wears lots of makeup and has a tough exterior with a comforting presence. Her direct opposite is Paulie, who is tall, blonde, and the free spirit of the group. Paulie who is wild and loud and naturally draws attention and has learned to live in it. Her magic is experimental and lets her go wherever the wind takes her. Their little town is too small for Paulie to spread her wings, because she knows she was meant for bigger things.

Although Paulie and Maryam are really close, they fight the most. Maryam is the one who keeps everyone in check, emotionally and otherwise. She doesn’t let anyone get away with hiding their feelings for each other (at least half of them have feelings for each other), but she also doesn’t let them give up on trying to fix the Josh thing. I think we have to try to do the right thing, before we can find excuses for having done the wrong thing. That quote is Maryam in a nutshell. Next to her is the head honcho Iris, who thinks she needs to have all the answers, and freaks out when she doesn’t. Sometimes she gets so stuck in being in control that she needs the others to confirm the smaller parts of reality. Being the only one who can see her own magic, Iris is the one everyone looks to for what to do next, and she (along with Alexis) takes it the hardest when their attempts to fix it go sideways.

And then there’s Roya. Roya the hungry swimmer who is honest and direct and can get lost in herself sometimes. Roya’s magic heals physical wounds, but she tends to keep her own emotions to herself, mostly because of Alexis and that “I’m not sure she likes me” bit. All together, they are some of the most chaotic good characters I’ve ever known. Like some of the other books I’ve been reading lately, the world of teenagers who have some huge responsibility on their shoulders is opened up, and Sarah Gailey does such an amazing job (in my opinion) with bringing both the mundane teenage end-of-the-worldness and the oh-shit-I-have-magic-powers into a harmonious balance.

My final thoughts are that When We Were Magic brings up some small and not-so-small feelings that I didn’t even know how to put into words until I read about the experiences of these six girls. There was a note of hopefulness that was woven into each of their individual personalities while they were all ultimately trying to figure out who they were while still being friends. Although their magic bound them to each other, there was an unspoken bond between them all, and despite the not-fully-happy ending, I still felt fulfilled and satisfied, which is really, all I can ask for.

When We Were Magic has one of the most explosive, most darkly funny openings I’ve ever read. You definitely can’t say that Gailey doesn’t know how to throw you straight into the action.

The book follows Alexis and her five closest friends as they deal with the fallout from a little accidental magical murder. The number of main characters — plus Alex’s dads and brother, plus a handful of side characters — meant that it look me a little while to initially get a handle on each of the girls. Gailey does really well though, and each character has a distinctly memorable character early on. The girls are such an amazing, perfect friend group — with different dynamics between the different girls — you’d definitely want to have hung out with them in high school. Alexis also has the sweetest, most wholesome family ever: her little brother, Nico, and her dads are absolutely adorable.

The characters and characterisation in When We Were Magic was absolutely steller.

I loved the witchy side of the story too. I definitely got The Craft vibes from it, but without the bitchy, girl-against-girl aspect. In When We Were Magic we get girls supporting each other, working together and looking out for each other. The girls can work together with their powers — as they do at the start of the story — but each girl has her own, specific and distinct speciality e.g. Alexis can talk to animals. What’s really cool is that the powers are really unusual, not just the usual superpower tropes.

The only — tiny — issue I had with the book was the way the gang treat another girl who starts sticking her nose into Josh’s disappearance. The treatment of her — which felt like bullying — honestly felt cruel in a way that murder didn’t.

This was my first Sarah Gailey book and I totally understand the hype now; I gobbled this entire thing up in basically one sitting. This gave me all of the friendship / queer girl feels and I liked it A LOT. It wasn't an absolutely perfect read for me (I felt like the ending wrapped up a little blandly if I'm being honest), but the writing and the characters definitely made up for that and I cannot WAIT to go back and check out the rest of Gailey's backlist. GIMME ALL THE QUEER MAGIC-Y THINGS

I love the work that Sarah Gailey is putting out into the world. They respect young people enough to deliver characters who demonstrate a keen understanding of inter-sectional issues regarding race and gender in a completely normalized way. This is a beautiful approach to changing the future. All this, and it's a cool girl story about magic. I simply cannot ask for more of the YA genre.

I found this book to drone in an annoying puddle of insecurity. It could have been great had it focused more on action and less on being in an insecure teen girl's head. A diverse cast and solid look at LGBTQ concepts was ruined by a weak plot.

I really loved this one!

It’s Alex’s prom night and she and is ready to lose her virginity to her date at a party when … she accidentally kills him. This happens in a weird and dramatic way that characterizes the darkly humorous tone of this book. She quickly assembles her friends to help her with this unexpected situation. Fortunately, her friends all have magical powers. Unfortunately, they make things … well, not really worse, but not much better either.

The rest of the book explores Alex’s relationships with her friends, her guilt, and her secret, undeclared love for her friend Roya. Her squad is a diverse one, all of whom possessing magical abilities that they seem to be exploring and learning to master. As is often the case in paranormal books, using magic has its consequences, and all of friends start to suffer in different ways. This makes Alex feel guilty, both for unintentionally causing someone’s death and then dragging her friends into it.

At times I wish the magic had been better explained. But the characters didn’t really understand their own powers yet either. It seemed to me that their exploration of their sexualities was somehow intertwined with the magic. Amidst all the drama, the love story of Alex and Roya was so lovely.

I found When We Were Magic quietly suspenseful – it reminded me at times of How to Get Away With Murder or even (if you’re older like me) I Know What You Did Last Summer. And at times, even The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe (no, I’m not THAT old but I read it in school.)

I always enjoy Sarah Gailey’s beautiful vision of magic. I will say that in this novel, unlike Magic For Liars, the stakes felt too low. However, the friendship love was wholesome and heartwarming.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for the advance Kindle copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 for this 3.3.20 release. Alexis and her best friends have a BIG secret in common: they are magic, each in their own unique way. When a prom-night rendezvous ends up killing a guy, the group has to find a way to either hide the body or bring him back. There’s a lot of diversity in this book and a ton of character development; the actual premise of how the guy dies lands this one firmly in high school territory for me. Recommended fed for grades 10+.

When We Were Magic started off as a book that felt as if it would be a quirky, funny, quick read that I would enjoy. The premise is six best friends can all do magic together. They help each other, and rely on each other when things get really bad. On prom night Alexis accidentally kills a boy with her magic, and her friends come to the rescue to try and fix it, but there are consequences for the magic that they have done.
The premise sounded like a potential dark comedy. When I had first started reading, after becoming frustrated with a condom, Alexis accidentally explodes the junk of the boy she was going to lose her virginity to on prom night. Unfortunately, after that somewhat comedic situation, there isn’t much humor for the rest of the book. I really enjoyed the sisterly bond these six girls had, and how they would do anything to keep each other safe. The relationships in this book kept me interested. I had an issue with the “slow burn romance” that was building over the course of the book. So, it actually didn’t really build, moreso it started getting talked about a little over a third of the way into the book. Also, all of the characters seemingly know about it being a thing already, which was silly.
Overall, this story needed more magic and comedy in it for me to truly recommend it to others.
I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

“I finally get it. I trust her. I trust her with my secrets, and I trust her with my friendship, and I trust her with my gratitude. I don’t need to apologize for being thankful for her. I don’t owe her an apology—just gratitude.”

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2018, Sarah Gailey's trajectory does not seem as though it will stop soaring any time soon. Even though Gailey only published Magic for Liars, their first full-length book in 2017, they had been truly prolific in the field of short stories and comics, including a few Steven Universe works, one of the most beloved cartoons in the last few years. This year, Gailey keeps going strong. They published a new novella in February titled Upright Women Wanted, and now their first YA novel: When We Were Magic.

Easy to follow and straightforward, When We Were Magic is a beautiful—and very much needed—exploration of female friendships and the deep bonds that tie friends together through the thick and thin of high school. In this case, exploring it through a very special group of friends who are in the process of understanding their ever-growing magical powers. Making use of a lighthearted narration, Gailey doesn’t rely too heavily on metaphors and other stylistic devices, as we follow the story through the protagonist’s eyes. With a simple first-person narration, Alexis’ words and narrative style is quick and sharp, yet considerate, matching her mental process. At the same time, through her eyes and thoughts, we get to understand her deeply rooted insecurities and the painful way in which we sometimes overthink everything that happens to us, to the point where we even doubt whether we are worthy of the support and love our friends and families offer us. In contrast to these recurrent aspects in her personal behaviour, the most engaging element in the narration is the fierce love Alexis has for her friends, which is ingrained in every single one of her thoughts.

However, this undying love does not only go one way. The driving force of the novel is the undying affection Alexis and her friends—Roya, Iris, Paulie, Marcelina, and Maryam—constantly show for each other, never faltering for a single second. Following these lines, trust and accepting help are the two core themes in their story, and Sarah Gailey even says so themselves in the acknowledgements section of the novel. Despite being fully aware of the support we have around us, our insecurities sometimes blind us and don’t allow us to accept the love and caring our friends and family offer us. Nonetheless, we are social animals after all, and we need other people to grow and feel secure. Accepting help is not always easy, but we have to let others lend us a hand, both for our sake and theirs. Relationships are a symbiotic union, and it is only natural that if we help our friends and family, we should also let them do the same for us.

The topic of friendship and the insecurities that commonly come along with it are a breath of fresh air. For the most part of the YA literary production, friendship tends to be relegated to a second plane. Friendships are taken for granted as something that the characters don’t have to cultivate and nourish at all. On the contrary, romantic relationships take the lead and become the focal point of most narratives. This is not the case of When We Were Magic. Their friendship is beautiful, they are all honest with each other, even when they have to call out a wrongdoing. They respect each other’s opinions and feelings, and give each other space when they need to do so. Also, Gailey explores the subtlest forms of affection, which tend to go unnoticed, like learning the patterns of your friends’ personalities, hence knowing better than anyone else when to act and when to support each other, and even when and how to calm them during a crisis. Overall, When We Were Magic gifts us with the purest and most magical friendship, while also being 100% realistic: they scream at each other, and steal the other’s food, and make mistakes. But, at the end of the day, none of that matters, because they love each other above all things.

Despite this diversion from the mainstream, romance also plays an important part on the novel—as Alexis is secretly in love with her best friend, Roya. Nonetheless, friendship is still the powerhouse of the novel, and it does not get overshadowed by romantic love. Both types of relationships are perfectly balanced, and nourished with the same amounts of dedication and affection. As a result, Alexis and Roya’s oblivious mutual crush is delightfully cute and realistic. Along with their beautiful friendship, this slow-burn w/w romance is all we needed to make our hearts melt.

There is no doubt that the six girls and their interactions are the highlight of the novel. Each girl complements each other both in terms of their personalities and magical abilities, while also remaining perfectly unique on their own. Their identities are polished and defined, in such a beautiful display of diversity that all readers can find some form of representation to feel identified with. Alexis and her friends are all such round characters that none of them gets overshadowed by the rest and you get attached to all of them. Furthermore, they deal with very relatable topics—apart from the murder, of course…or so we hope—both for teenagers and even some older audiences.

Even the secondary characters are lovable and relevant enough for the reader to get attached to them. This is especially the case of Alexis’ dads, who, throughout the entire novel support their daughter through thick and thin. In YA novels, it is not unusual for parents to be completely absent for their teenage children, often showing very little support or attention towards them. Contrarily, in When We Were Magic, Gailey presents an extremely loving pair of dads, who listen to their daughter and give her space to grow, but who also reprimand her when she’s done wrong. Parental love is extremely rare in YA, so it is truly charming to read about positive and supportive parental figures for a change.

Obviously, When We Were Magic is a character-driven novel, where the growth and emotional landscape of the characters takes the spotlight, rather than the plot. Consequently, not much happens action-wise apart from the big murder that jumpstarts the story —with no less than an exploding penis—, or the gang’s attempts at getting rid of the body. The main focus is placed on the girls discovering the consequences of their own powers and learning how to deal with mistakes together. Notwithstanding, the plot doesn’t get repetitive or boring at any point. Due to the overall positive undertone of the novel, the reader might expect everything to turn out okay—meaning that the girls are able to bring the murdered boy back to life. Nonetheless, Gailey teaches Alexis and the reader a lesson: there are certain mistakes that cannot be fixed, but we have to learn to live with them and try to become better than the person we were when we did such a thing. At the same time, while the ending is perfectly coherent and offers quite a reasonable conclusion to the girls’ problem, it also leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Hence, the ending feels a bit rushed and rather incomplete. Maybe it would be nice to read a sequel in the future, where we are able to learn a little bit more about how everything got sorted out and see how the girls are managing their magic.

All in all, When We Were Magic is a charming first dive into the world of YA literature. If you are looking for a refreshing read full of magic and wonderful characters to whom you can relate, this may be the perfect pick.

Sarah Gailey has my whole heart right now. They do such an elegant job capturing emotions and thoughts. I felt like I knew all six main characters intimately. Beautiful and diverse cast.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Pulse for the eARC.

When We Were Magic follows six high school witches who each have their own special powers. When things go wrong on prom night, it's up to the group to fix the mistake.
The representation in this book is great. The six girls are powerful and fun and real. The only problem that I had with the book is that since there are six of them, there were times that it was hard to distinguish between one another.

I found this YA novel really disturbing. A group of high school girls with magic abilities uses their powers to cover up the accidental death of a boy. While there is great non-white and queer representation, the girl responsible for the death never worries about what she did to kill the boy, and the other girls are equally self-centered in their help in the cover-up. The boy who dies is just an object, and is treated as such by the girls. I’m not opposed to immoral characters, but the cast here seems entirely amoral and without compassion or a thought for anyone outside their circle. The threat posed to the magic girls by an outsider girl turns predictably into an epiphany for all of the group, and ultimately none of the girls ever confronts the very problematic nature of magic or the fact that none of them really know what they can do or how it works.