While that sense of fun and magic carry through the rest of the narrative, things get serious later, and homosexuality and family acceptance take center stage. Beware men’s hearts never let them be your master. The Rulebook for Witches had over 300 entries, but Aunt Gemma stressed only three:Ģ. It kicks off with what’s perhaps the collection’s most memorable opening lines: The tale of a gay man with magical powers struggling to find love, using potions, and simultaneously navigating his family, a budding relationship, and his sexuality, this story walks a wild line between an LGBTQ+ love story with some fun magic thrown in and a dark tale about suffering and the misunderstandings that lead to heartbreak. Perhaps the collection’s crowning jewel is “A Spell for Foolish Hearts,” the fourth story (although I think it’s long enough to be called a novelette). While some stories have a dash of humor, others have an emotional grittiness that makes their genre largely irrelevant––they entertain and offer escapism like the best short fiction, but they primarily engage the heart.

“A Cup of Salt Tears,” for example, is the story of a young woman who’s regularly visited by a kappa while her husband dies in a hospital. The stories in Never Have I Ever are like fairytales with a dark core. And while I know it is not always easy to be good, I promise to at least try.” However, while these girls try to be good, there are things inside each of them-and inside each of us-that can’t be tamed with a pledge, or even with the will to be good. The story follows a girl stuck at the Bakersfield Good Girl Reformation Retreat, where young girls daily recite the retreat’s pledge: “I’m a good girl. Order now: Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBoundĪnd the darkness of “Good Girls” goes well beyond that line.

Never have i ever book isabel yap