The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic

One star for the recipes and one star for all the rest, because wow was this book an absolute mess. The original claim was that this was going to be a Practical Magic meets Gilmore Girls story. I did kind of get a bit of a Practical Magic vibe, at least at the beginning. But GG? Nope. Nada. Nothing. Character development was marginal at best and the world building...well...there wasn't much of that either. There wasn't anything to make me understand or even care about these characters.

Sadie, the MC, had the emotional maturity of a 10yr old. Her long lost “love” Jake (I still don't get the long lost part) alternated between doormat and bully. As for Sadie's depressed, emo twin Seth, he's about as interesting as a wet paper bag. With all the other characters - there are a ton of them - the author seemed to be more interested in giving them all specific magical powers (Think Encanto, except the animated Madrigal Family was more 3 dimensional) than making them fulfledged characters.

I have no idea what this book was trying to be: romance? family drama? magical realism? fantasy? It missed the mark on all of the above. And I still don't understand the whole family of practicing witches goes to church. REGULARLY. Like every Sunday morning. Just one more thing that made this story ridiculous overall.