This Spells Love Book Review

Gemma Wilde is introduced to us as a creature of habit. Every Saturday she meets her older sister, Kiersten, at a donut shop that is the starting point for their weekly “walk and talks”. The fact that the book opens up on a random July morning should be considered foreshadowing that something completely out of the ordinary is going to happen to Gemma.

“So, are we solving today's problems with sugar or alcohol?”

At this point in the story, there’s nothing special about Gemma. She’s a twenty-something year old with a broken heart and a sugar addiction (we’ve all been there, right?). However, pair Gemma with her eccentric Aunt Livi and you get a much more interesting character. Indulging her aunt’s eccentricities (after having a few margaritas), Gemma agrees to perform a “love cleanse” spell. With the help of Aunt Livi, Kiersten, and her best friend, Dax, Gemma checks off each step up until the spell requires it to be sealed with a kiss. Gemma panics and doesn’t complete the spell until later that night.

The next morning, Gemma wakes up hungover and in a place she doesn’t recognize with someone she doesn’t know. This is where the plot of the book becomes completely unhinged. Gemma wakes up in an alternate reality where the only similarities to the life she knows is that her sister is still her sister and her aunt is still her aunt. However, she still remembers completing the spell in her real life by kissing Dax and thinking that she was going to wake up the next morning regretting it. The problem with this alternate reality is that when she goes to talk to Dax about it, he has no clue who she is and freaks out on her.

The scene of alternate Dax and the Gemma we know meeting is actually quite hilarious.  Gemma, of course, knows everything about Dax, but Dax knows nothing about Gemma in this reality (including the fact that she even exists). So when she shows up to his sneaker store, he rightfully freaks out. Talk about a wild first impression!

Honestly, Gemma’s further attempts to try to show Dax that they are friendship material are pretty psychotic. While I couldn’t help but appreciate her persistence, it was clear to me that there was no attempt to make this story even a little grounded in reality. Dax doesn’t even threaten to file a restraining order on her after the store fiasco or even after she shows up to another place she knows he’ll be. This may make him come across as extremely trusting, but to me it came across as a bit unassuming and naive. As a result, I had a challenging time connecting to Dax as a character.

Eventually (and not surprisingly), Gemma wins Dax over and we start getting to know Dax since we only got a small glimpse of him in the other reality. This does provide Gemma with an opportunity to see this Dax in a different light and she develops feelings that extend beyond friendship. This should be something that she should be able to freely explore given that this isn’t her reality and she’s trying to figure out how to get back to her reality. So the conflict she feels over crossing the line from friendship to something more feels extremely unnecessary to me.

While the book focuses on the Gemma we know and the alternate reality characters (Aunt Livi, Kiersten, and Dax), I couldn’t help but wonder what alternate Gemma and the characters we were first introduced to were up to towards the end. Spoiler: Gemma goes back to her reality and alternate Gemma presumably goes back to her reality. However, neither reality is the same after the spell is performed. So while we know what happens in the alternate reality, what happened in the reality we’re first introduced to?

I personally think this was a huge gap because the ending of the book was just too neat for such a wild story. We know what happens when our Gemma wakes up in the alternate reality, but what about alternate Gemma? We know that our Gemma left things in a really awkward place with our Dax, so what happens with our Dax and alternate Gemma when they interact knowing that alternate Gemma doesn’t know Dax in her reality? I was left with more questions than answers that made me feel like the ending was less of a resolution and more of a perfectly packaged ending. I do wish the alternate reality portion of the story was more fleshed out.

Despite the book having some room for improvement, it’s an extremely entertaining read. I thoroughly enjoyed the discoveries Gemma made about her love life and how this experience shaped her future. The story is creative, salacious, and a very quick read.