The Grimoire of Grave Fates by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen is a book I really wanted to love. But the multi POV from of solving the murder was too much for me. There was just too many perspectives and chaos for me - I DNF at 35 %

The Grimoire of Grave Fates is a multi-author young adult anthology that features 18 different authors - of various backgrounds - each contributing a story that seemingly responds to the following premise: Showcase a teenager at an international magic school that used to be stolidly traditional and is now opening up to a more diverse - in race, culture, sex, and queerness - student body. The anthology further adds an extra bit to the premise by centering the book around a murder mystery - the murder of a bigoted traditionalist professor who nearly everyone hates.

And so we have 18 stories showcasing the 18 very different magically gifted teenagers as they deal with their own internal struggles - caused by conflicts of culture, typical teenage love (often queer) struggles, of queerness and struggles with identity, etc. - as well as these teens' responses to the murder. And well given that these are teenagers who have often had dreams of being a chosen one, well, for a lot of them that involves trying to solve said murder mystery. And that's where this book kind of struggles, because the multi author approach - and constant shifting of characters - to the mystery makes it feel incredibly disjointed, so anyone who comes here looking for a coherent mystery, rather than a collection of solid YA flash fiction, will be a bit disappointed.

More specific safter the jump:

Plot Summary:
The Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a topnotch magical school for teens around the world. Once bound to England, the school now travels around the world and features a more diverse student body, featuring students of various cultures and ethnicities, of different genders, and who have very different but equally valuable magical specialties specific to them. That said, some of the backers of the university, and some of the professors, still prefer the old state of the school and continue to have bigoted attitudes towards their new student body.

One of those professors was Professor Dropwort, Galileo's history teacher and resident bigoted bully. So when Galileo is found murdered, no one is that unhappy about it....but in a school full of teens with burgeoning magic and growing insecurities about their own self-worth, it soon becomes increasingly popular for these students to try and each individually figure out who killed him....before the authorities finger someone innocent just to close the case first.

Usually for anthologies I don't include a plot summary but The Grimoire of Grave Fates is kind of a weird book. On one hand, the book is a sort of a collection of flash fiction about the very diverse (in race, culture, sex, queerness, etc.) teens in this academy (with one exception) and how they react to being in this new environment which promises to help them learn but still retains some of its bigoted attitudes in some places. On the other hand, the book also tries to be a murder mystery novel, with each character's (and author's) story taking place after the other chronologically and advancing the story of the mystery, such that the first story features a character discovering Dropwort's dead body and the last story featuring the culprit being caught. So the plot summary above, and to be honest myself reading this book, read the collection as if it was supposed to be a mystery to be enjoyed as such.

And well, as a murder mystery, The Grimoire of Grave Fates is a frustrating story. Because each author switches off their protagonist - and because most of the protagonists have little to do with the others - the novel feels INCREDIBLY disjointed: one character's story will make a discovery about the murder - like the motive or what the bigoted criminal professor was up to - and then the next character's story will feature another character who never learns about that discovery from the prior character and/or discovers it on their own and/or will completely ignore that discovery entirely. Some characters will pop up repeatedly from story to story, but most don't, and teasers about various characters in one story will never be followed up upon often (for example, in the first story, main character Wren notes that they are the only necromancer, an illegal magic, but that character Jamie is immune to their magic. Many stories later, Jamie is revealed to be another necromancer and is teased by the idea that there is another person like him there...but nothing ever comes of this and they never meet). The murder mystery is essentially solved, with little to no help from anyone else, by the last few protagonists....and then, with NO help from them whatsoever, the last character stops the culprit. It just feels incredibly frustrating if you come at this story like a murder mystery novel, because its incredibly disjointed, with the various new developments being only 50/50 to ever be acted upon, and you never getting to see earlier characters again outside of occasional mentions.

Fortunately, The Grimoire of Grave Fates works far better if you ignore the murder mystery and treat this as a series of flash fic or short stories (really more like flash fic) about a diverse cast of teenage characters in a magic school breaking with tradition and becoming more diverse in the best ways possible. You have a couple of trans characters dealing with trans issues - one dealing with their struggles with others' bigotries, one dealing more with the fact that his transition hasn't made everything automatically better, even if it was clearly the right thing to do; you have a couple of characters dealing with struggles with friends and crushes (Kat Cho's story of her character Jia Park is adorable); you have a pair of girls in love with each other trying to keep the others from being a suspect; you have black; Hispanic; Muslim and other characters dealing with prejudice; you have a disabled girl dealing with ableism; you have multiple characters dealing with traditional expectations from families and legacies they don't feel they can live up to, etc. etc. It's a very big amount of variety and the stories generally work. That said, because they're trapped in the murder mystery framework, many of the stories really feel more like flash fiction than full short stories as they don't really have full arcs, but instead just have plots that deal with their characters' issues and then hand off a clue to the next character. But they're enjoyable and worthwhile flash fic, if that, even if not every one works (one of the last stories is basically a "girl detective" story that's kind of a complete miss).

So in short, The Grimoire of Grave Fates is a solid collection of YA flash fiction that should work rather well for a diverse audience...if they can not get too disappointed by the murder mystery framework. A solid book for the right reader with that caution.

Great for those who love the magical school trope but want a whodunit plot. I loved that each chapter took place from a different character’s POV.

I wanted to love this book. It sounded amazing. A murder at a traveling magical boarding school? Sign me up! The main premise of the book is that the most reviled professor at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary, Professor Septimius Dropwort, is discovered murdered.
Everyone becomes a suspect. However, Dropwort is known for being less than kind to the more diverse students at the academy. Everyone that Dropwort had a problem with then get interviewed to see if they are the murderer.
So essentially the reason I was not a huge fan, is that you have 18 chapters that each introduce a new character. The chapters are roughy 40 or so pages. In each chapter you get a background story for each student, a reason for why they dislike the victim, and a reason for why they are a suspect.
You don't get a lot of time with each student to become attached to them enough to care for them.
I believe this would have worked better with less students so that each one could have been fleshed out more. With so many different POVs, if a character popped up again it was hard to remember who they were and why they mattered.
With so many introductions, the book became repetitive and I started to lose interest.
If you love books with a lot of POVs l'd say give it a chance.
Just because I didn't love it, it doesn't mean you may not love it.

I really enjoyed this. It kept me engaged and wanting to know more about all of the characters and their various magics and problems. It was a little jarring to start over every chapter with new characters and a new magic system and starting back at the beginning with the clues. I think if each author had had a couple of chapters to develop their character and plot that would have worked better. The way it is it sometimes felt disjointed.

I also felt each story section was too short and I wanted to know more about the characters. Sometimes they appeared again as cameos in other stories and sometimes they were just gone. There were some really cool ideas. Pocket universes? Smoke magic? Gargoyles? The storage tunnels? Like, tell me more! Develop those ideas! Don't leave me hanging!

I like how everything was wrapped up at the end and how some of the clues turned out to be red herrings. I also like how Dropwart was consistently just not a nice dude.

I also LOVE the diversity. All of the various backgrounds and cultures and genders lent themselves so well to a variety of magic systems that was so intriguing. I haven't seen anything like it before. I definitely will be seeking out other works by several of the authors who are new to me.

The audiobook was done well and kept me engrossed in the story. The characters had distinguishable voices and it was easy to listen to.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for providing an early copy for review.

I actually did really enjoy this. There were just a couple of things that didn’t hit with me. Because the point of views are so short it’s hard to be introduced to 18 characters and their backstories so quickly. The same is said for the romance aspects. You cannot possibly develop a well rounded character or romance in such a short amount of pages. For this reason I choose to give this a 2.75 star rounding up to 3

A murder set in a campus and so many clues and mysteries you have to follow to understand what's happening, while reading 18 stories by different authors. Original and so good

It really just seems like they took Hogwarts and a murder mystery and threw it in a blender... Just not my thing.

What I liked:
The Grimoire of Grave Fates is written by 18 fabulous YA authors, which makes for a unique way to write a murder mystery. I can say that I could tell we had different authors writing, but it flowed so well as a murder mystery. The 18 students are a mixed group of gender and sexuality identities, religious and cultural identities, and magical cultures. I got just enough of each character to want more, and the "19th" character of the gargoyles wove like a thread throughout. The uniqueness of a magical school that travels was what sold it to me. I read many books about magical schools, but the appeal of it being a traveling school was unique.
Final Verdict:
While we have a large cast of characters to pull from who killed the professor and why it wasn't hard to keep track of them as they are a unique cast, each writer brought their voice to the book while still connecting to the characters the other authors created. Each student had their talents, insecurities, and viewpoints. The cool thing about the Galileo Academy is that it enrolls students worldwide, so we get to hear from people of different races, sexual orientations, socioeconomic classes, and cultures. I loved that each author could share something of themselves through their character chapter, and I kept guessing till the end who the culprit was and why. A unique addition to the Ya mystery genre, and I would love to read another story like this one.

Brilliant concept, great execution! Was so wonderful to see such a diverse cast in a magic school story for once!

I love so many of the authors in this book, and was so excited to read it! However, when I actually got into it, the pacing was slow, the plot was confusing, and the characters felt very 2-dimensional.

*eARC provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This was a strange book. I really wanted to love it, cause it a really cool concept, but it fell flat for me. Part of the issue is that we are only with each character for a single chapter, and there are a lot of chapters. Which leads to too many main characters and a reader who struggles to get attached and keep track of who's who.

It seems like each author was given a single fact about the mystery instead of knowing the whole thing, so it is hard to solve it yourself before the characters do.

The concept of this book is an immensely cool idea. I can only imagine how hard it was to get all 18 viewpoints to mesh together & make sure that it fit nicely. I'm impressed! The setting and descriptions of the Galileo school (and its many rooms/secret places), the creatures, the magical cultures, and the magical abilities seen in the book left me wanting to know so much more about the world that these authors have created. It would be intriguing to get a book for each character - learning more about where they came from or even an adventure taking place after this book.

Each chapter of this book has a different and unique student point of view. I believe that the overall book plot and characters suffered a little bit because it seemed difficult to find a perfect balance of character or plot development. There never seemed to be enough of either - even when the characters overlapped and became side characters in another POV. My favorite character wasn’t even a POV, Nurse Fibula. The main antagonist and the murderer seemed to have fairly bland reasons behind their actions. One aspect that I really loved were the gargoyles, I'd not encountered a book before where they were living breathing creatures. When the book ended it was fairly anticlimactic - even with the twist that I wasn't fully expecting.

My experience with these 18 students while they all gathered information on Professor Dropwort's mysterious death was interesting - I only wish that there was more. I would follow the students of Galileo in another adventure should a second book come out. I would like to thank Delacorte Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this exceptionally unique book.

The Grimoire of Grave Fates is a YA murder-mystery fantasy themed anthology edited by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen. Released 6th June 2023 by Penguin Random House on their Delacorte Press imprint, it's 464 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback due out 11th June 2024 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately; it makes it so easy to find information with the search function.

This is an engaging murder mystery set in and around a school for magically talented students. A grisly murder has taken place, and the stories of the students and staff are written around finding (or concealing) the who why and how of the crime. There are 18 authors writing in an "hour per chapter" timeline format. The chapters are stylistically varying, but generally well edited enough to make a more-or-less cohesive whole.

It's definitely written toward a YA audience (Lexile score 800), but enjoyable to other ages; though not too young, there are some scary descriptions included. The authors and their characters are diverse and are drawn from a wide variety of ethnicities, orientations, and backgrounds.

It's an interesting and challenging premise, and the editors do a fine job of tying the chapters into a readable and engaging story.

Three and a half stars. This would be a nice choice for public or school library acquisition, home reading, or possibly a buddy read.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I requested this for consideration for Book Riot's All the Books podcast for its release date. After sampling several books out this week, I decided to go with a different book for my review.

I finished this super fun Dark Academia, Magical School, Murder Mystery yesterday!! It’s witchy with magical creatures and a really fun plot line. The characters are diverse with lots of lgbtq+ rep, and different backgrounds.

I wasn’t too sure how much I’d love it based on the low ratings I’d been seeing, but I managed to go in blind. I binged it on audiobook because I did not want to put my ebook down!

Friends, if you’re looking for a fun witchy adventure then grab this!!! It will keep you guessing, hit you in the feels, and entertain you for hours!

I was captivated by the concept of this book, in which 18 different authors collectively craft the points of view for 18 different students as they endeavor to solve a murder mystery within the walls of their magical school, the renowned Galileo Academy. This unique institution shifts its location, along with its students, to various countries worldwide, boasting a diverse body of students and faculty. However, Professor Septimius Dropwort stands out as a harsh teacher with a penchant for rigid rules and consequences, especially towards students he deems 'other.' When he is suddenly discovered dead, the sheer number of potential suspects hinders any immediate arrests. Can the students unravel the mystery of the murderer lurking among them?

The narrative is skillfully woven through the perspectives of numerous characters, all of whom are students at the academy. Each chapter introduces a different character's viewpoint, with each segment contributed by a different author. While this approach offers diversity, it presents a challenge in the form of a large and somewhat unwieldy cast of characters, making it occasionally challenging to recall who each person is when referenced in subsequent chapters.
Overall it was an enjoyable read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Reviewed for inclusion on the Texas Library Association's Tayshas List. What a fun book! I loved the concept and the format as well as the wide-spread representation.

3.5⭐
Thank you so much to Delacorte Press and Netgalley for providing an advanced copy of this. All thoughts and opinions are still my own.

This was a such a fun and unique YA anthology. Told from 18 different POVs all written by different YA authors, you follow a magical school and its students as they try and solve the murder of a not-so-loved professor.

One of the best aspects of this book is how diverse it was in its characters and authors. There was everything from disability to trans to queer to POC rep. And it was fantastic. It also had amazing discussions are inclusion and colonization and performative allyship.

While I personally didn't find anything about this shocking, I think this mystery is perfectly tailored to its target audience. With themes and characters that will challenge and relate to teens.

This style and setup was something I've never seen before. And while it was a lot of fun, it doesn't keep you at arms length from each of the characters. Because you only get a few pages from each, you never really get to know a single character well.

Overall, I had a good time with this. I think it accomplished exactly what it set out to do. It has great themes and messages all with an eerie dark academia vibe and unique style & voice.

This book really wasn't for me. Switching between characters so frequently made it so I couldn't really connect with any of them.

There is a lot of representation of various cultures and abilities. The mystery is a "skull scratcher," so to speak...