The Fascinators

By: Andrew Eliopulos

Narrated by: Michael Crouch

A magic-infused YA novel about friendship, first love, and feeling out of place that will bewitch fans of Rainbow Rowell and Maggie Stiefvater.

Living in a small town where magic is frowned upon, Sam needs his friends James and Delia - and their time together in their school's magic club - to see him through to graduation. But as soon as senior year starts, little cracks in their group begin to show. Sam may or may not be in love with James. Delia is growing more frustrated with their amateur magic club. And James reveals that he got mixed up with some sketchy magickers over the summer, putting a target on all their backs.

With so many fault lines threatening to derail his hopes for the year, Sam is forced to face the fact that the very love of magic that brought his group together is now tearing them apart - and there are some problems that no amount of magic can fix.

©2020 Andrew Eliopulos (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

wasted potential

the ending was just.. so anticlimactic. no satisfaction. it was hardly worth listening to at all with how little resolution it gave.

Kind of disappointing

I feel like this author wanted to relay a series of anecdotes on the experience of growing up queer and dealing with bigotry, hate, closeted guys, etc. And in that sense, they definitely succeeded, because as a queer person myself I found a lot of Sam's and Denver's little experiences to be quite relatable and well-said.

The issue is that this book is also trying to have an overarcing plot and narrative and a love story and in those senses, it really falls short. The world setting was pretty neat, but the plot is middling at best and occasionally outright boring. I don't feel like most of the characters actually had an arc or went anywhere, from a narrative standpoint, and the two that really did... well, one is our main character whose development just feels kinda flat by the end, and the other is given an extremely flimsy motivation for doing something extremely questionable and then is just kinda... left out there, with no finished plot line.

I dunno, by the end I really found myself feeling like the whole thing had been a bit of a waste of time, especially since of the two romances the book makes you wanna root for, one gets treated like an afterthought and the other goes unresolved entirely. That was a real let down.

The narrator's performance was... middling. I can tell he's actually VERY good, but in his effort to try and give every character a distinct voice, his delivery of Sam's lines just winds up being flat and vaguely depressing pretty much all the way through, like he's perpetually sad, and I didn't feel like that really fit the tone of most of Sam's lines. An unfortunate choice, I think.

Anyway, all of it was, overall, passable and at least something to listen to on a drive or something. But I just found myself really disappointed by it.

Left me wanting more

Great narration by Michael Crouch for such build up to little action where so much is left hanging. Maybe a sequel will help fill this out a little better?

A lovely ride

I really appreciate this book. I really do. The characters were so relatable it was infuriating at times, but that's what how we are isn't it? I love how even though this book has so many fantasy elements it never seemed plot driven. It was completely character driven. 10/10 I would highly recommend this story.

Okay

This was good book but the love plot has a lot of loose ends they need to tie and the thing that brought most people to this book didn’t actually happen and the author tried to hard to make it unpredictable.

Mostly wonderful, BUT...

BEWARE, POSSIBLE (VAGUE) SPOILERS: I always love anything Michael Crouch narrates. He is without a doubt one of my top five audiobook narrators. The story of this book was wonderful. It was rich and atmospheric, though sometimes heartbreaking and depressing as so many good books are. My only problem was the ending. In many ways, it was very satisfying. The main plot was resolved, and it seems like many people got what they deserved, for good or bad. But there was one subplot, the relationship between two characters, that felt unresolved. And that relationship was actually what I personally most cared about in this book. I wanted to know how things worked out between these characters. There was a conversation they needed to have, and that conversation was not inconsequential to the plot. The relationship between these two characters was a driving force of everything that happened. These two characters needed and deserved a resolution to their storyline, and it feels like that conversation and resolution may have happened in between chapters, and that left me slightly confused, dissatisfied, and disappointed. I will read/listen to this book again. No question. But I believe that when I do, I will always be left wondering what happened between these two characters.

I need more!

3.5*

As soon as I finished listening to this audiobook I went off to search out the author on social media, to see if there were plans for a sequel. Sadly, the author doesn't appear to utilize social media much, and even though the last update on Instagram was pretty recent, it was a post about him leaving his job and making some changes, and it didn't sound too promising for a follow-up novel, which makes me sad.
Because, while I really enjoyed this story, there are a couple of things left unresolved, or at least left me wanting more! I feel like a whole series could come from this book, and I would be more than happy about it.

The Fascinators kept me entertained and intrigued from the start. I enjoyed the mystery and the magic, but towards the end things seemed a little rushed, and wrapped up a little too quickly for my liking. As I mentioned before, there are a couple of plot points that I would have liked to have seen brought to a better resolution, especially if this is a standalone. I can kind of accept one of the points being left open-ended, but there was an important relationship that definitely deserved more than what it got at the end. I may have to go back and read the ending again, in case I missed something while listening to it.
But overall, I really liked this book. It's a coming of age story with a little magic and mystery woven in.

Michael Crouch is my favorite narrators for YA. He does a wonderful job with all the different voices and characters. And there were a lot of them in this book!

Melancholic coming of age

It is a beautiful but bittersweet coming of age story with realistic gay youths set in a magical alternate modern age. I loved it.

A different kind of story about magic

Beautifully written story of love, friendship, acceptance, and magic. Eliopulos handles familiar themes adeptly and makes them feel fresh and brand new. He's created a "fascinating" world of magic that I wanted to linger in well past the story's conclusion. Comparisons to another series of books dealing with magic are inevitable, any story that deals with magic these days will be compared to the HP world, but I think what Eliopulos did here is quite remarkable: he made us care more about the characters and their plights than the magic itself. Because, really, underneath it all, that's what it's always been about—friendship.

Also, Michael Crouch proves, yet again, that he is one of the best audiobook narrators working today. Spot on, as always.

Now one of my favorite books of all time

I don't know what to say besides that I love the story line and that the romance wasn't like the main focal point until the end.