Magic for Liars

This is a really hard review to write. I agonized for several minutes about what the star rating should be. So the good and then the bad!
The good:
I once again love Gailey's prose style. I am not an English major so don't ask me to quantify what makes it so awesome.
I always appreciate when it makes sense why characters didn't communicate fully. A physical separation combined with a trauma would definitely cause two people to see a situation super differently. Outside of a therapy setting the passage of time decreased the odds of a real honest conversation.
I loved the nurse character. She scares me in a good way.
The teenagers felt more like teenagers than a lot of other books I read. Not perfect, the mean girl trope was a bit much, but pretty good.
The parlor room scene was pretty great, though it did have one sort of weird gap.
The bad
- All of the teachers should have been informed that the investigator didn't have a magic background. I know she asked the woman who hired her not to share that info, but it would have been more realistic if that information had been already shared with the adults in the room. I'm willing to buy the kids not being informed.
- I know this book isn't a romance and that its just a minor subplot. That being said, the romance plot used one of my least favorite tropes in a really dumb way.
- Why is she the only one immune to the weird persuasive power?? It is never explained. I kept waiting to find out the main character was immune to magic she didn't consent to, as like a plot twist or something. But nope. Just randomly immune. For reasons. Argh.