Quick funny story; I was on the fence on whether or not I wanted to stop reading this book, then I tried to explain it to a book buddy, and I couldn't do it. Nothing I said about the book made sense, and we both knew I had to give up.
On that note, an amazon summary, "Teodora di Sangro is used to hiding her magical ability to transform enemies into music boxes and mirrors. Nobody knows she’s a strega—and she aims to keep it that way.
The she meets Cielo—and everything changes.
A strega who can switch outward form as effortlessly as turning a page in a book, Cielo shows Teodora what her life could be like if she masters the power she’s been keeping secret. And not a moment too soon: the ruler of Vinalia has poisoned the patriarchs of the country’s five controlling families, including Teodora’s father, and demands that each family send a son to the palace.
If she wants to save her family, Teodora must travel to the capital—not disguised as a boy, but transformed into one. But the road to the capital, and to bridling her powers, is full of enemies and complications, including the one she least expects: falling in love." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Let's recap why I picked this book up in the first place. It has a sweet cover, it promises to discuss themes of gender, and also involves magic. Which, it does have a sweet cover, it does involve magic, but ....I don't know if it really discusses themes of gender.
Alright, so Teodora is the second daughter in the di Sangro family; one of the five ruling families of Vinalia. As the second daughter, she's not really expected to be married off to another family for alliances, or be a leader like her brothers. However, she does help the family in the way of taking out people who are a hazard to the family with her magic. Teodora or "Teo" as her family calls her, transforms people into objects, so the people go 'missing'.
One day, her father receives a letter that carries the spell of death. He's immediately bed-ridden, barely alive, and the letter demands that the di Sangro family to send the next head of the family to the capital. I need to rewind a little bit. No one really knows that Teo has magic, that she is a strega. Before her father received the letter, she met the messenger for the letter, a strega. The strega can shape shift into what's inside a book that they carry around. One thing leads to Teo turning her older brother into an owl when he tries to hurt the second brother. Then the second brother, Teo, and the strega start venturing to the capital together. ...but the older brother as an owl comes back and kills the second brother. So Teo and the strega still venture on to the capital... but one big problem. The head of the family is supposed to be a boy. So Teo has to turn herself into a boy.
I'm going to stop there. I did make it halfway through the book before giving up. However, I found there was too much going on within the book. You had the power struggles between the families, the internal power struggle within the di Sangro family, the other family members didn't feel like fully formed people so when they suddenly had to matter for a plot point it didn't seem believably significant, you also had the strega being a secretive yet magical people who are thought to not exist but are being prosecuted by the church, and then you also have Teo standing up for women's equality? It was an overwhelming amount of stuff in such a compact space that it didn't seem like any particular plot had any time to really breathe. PLUS, one of the weird things about Teo, when she does magic, she's randomly able to speak an old language? Also, her magic kind of talks to her? It seems sentient, like Teo can ask for it to turn someone into something vague, and then it completes the request in whatever way it wants to? Eh? I also don't think there was anything strongly in favor of discussing gender. I can see that it may have been going towards being able to love an individual regardless of gender and that it could have been breaking down how physical characteristics don't define a person? But I probably would have had to read the entire book to get there.
The book was a little too chaotic with not enough detail at the right moments, and I was trying very hard to get it, but it wasn't meant to be.
Happy reading!
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