Monday, October 3, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

 



The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches is the first adult novel from author Sangu Mandanna, author of the YA Celestial Trilogy.  I loved that trilogy, which took the Mahābhārata (one of two classical Hindi/Indian epics) and converted parts of it into space opera in a fascinating manner.  So when I heard she was doing a fun adult novel, a romantic/found-family fantasy novel, I asked my library to pre-order it so I could read it as quickly as possible.  

And The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches was a really fun and enjoyable novel - almost in the vein of TJ Klune's work except slightly different based upon Mandanna's own experience and background.  The story follows an Indian witch Mika Moon who was adopted by a British Witch after she was orphaned by a tragedy - as all witches in this world are - and was raised alone by tutors she could never get close to and taught that witches have to remain separate from each other to avoid disaster and must remain a secret.  But of course, fate brings her to a strange house in order to teach three girl witches how to control their power, where a group of people including a bitter but incredibly attractive young man attempt to take care of them, and causes her to experience the joys of being together...and of course a potential romance.  The result is a really enjoyable comfy fantasy with enjoyable romance elements, some dealings with colonialism, fear of revelation, and more, that certainly isn't a must read, but if you're looking for something that is charming, fun and lighten your mood, this is absolutely going to do the trick for you.  

Trigger Warning: Bullying and Sibling Abuse is mentioned but never shown on page.  

---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------------
Mika Moon was orphaned at a young age, like all witches have been for generations, and taken in from her homeland of India by a British witch named Primrose and brought back to Britain to grow up, taught by a series of outside tutors and nannies.  But while Primrose would provide education by proxy, she would never stay with Mika long to act as a real mother, because, as Primrose taught, the presence of witches staying together results in magic going out of control, threatening those around them and the secrecy upon which Primrose believes witches rely.  And so Mika grew up alone, moving around frequently, and always hoping she could show off her magic to the world, and not have to stay away from other witches and people....and to that end, she's started a social media video account where she acts like a "pretend" witch, trying to satisfy that urge without Primrose or the Society she runs ever realizing.  

But to Mika's surprise, the videos draw the attention of an odd group of people living in a strange remote house known as Nowhere House, a house that Mika and others can't detect due to powerful magical wards.  There she finds the impossible - three orphan witch girls, all collected together by an absent witch named Lillian, without control of their powers.  Such witches living together should be a danger to them all, but Mika is asked by the group to train them together so they can control their powers once a solicitor who could expose them comes for a visit in a few months.  And Mika can't resist the chance to prove that witches CAN work together...and it doesn't help that she can't help but care for the three orphan girls, taken from far away countries by Lillian like she was, and hope that they can have a happier less lonely upbringing than she did.  

And then there's Jamie, the prickly but handsome librarian of Nowhere House who very much doesn't want Mika there, but whom Mika can't help but like for his inner kindness...even if any closeness would surely be impossible, right?  
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The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches is the type of found family story that may remind some readers of the work of TJ Klune (Under the Whispering Door, the House in the Cerulean Sea), where a person who is bitter/dull/resentful of life comes to an oddball group of found-family-ish people and finds delight in life and love and takes surprising steps to save it from danger.  It's a delightful formula when it works, with the characters coming together, finding love and family, and can lead to a lot of smiling and happiness in me as a reader.  So it's a formula that I can definitely appreciate and I would've been interested in Mandanna's spin on it, even if she hadn't done anything truly different.

But Mandanna does do a number of things truly different, which work tremendously and are delightful.  First off, despite Mika having every reason to be a bitter angry soul - she was taken from India and any potential real family as a young child by an English witch who wouldn't even stay with her to raise her and tried to require Mika follow a lifestyle that keeps her alone and lonely for her own protection - Mika is instead charming and optimistic and desperate for something better right from the start.  Her lonely lifestyle has imparted her not with pessimism, but with some sensibility and a little reluctance to break away from some of those tough teachings of solitude and separation...but her optimism breaks through that reluctance quickly enough.  There's also the fact that Mika, as an orphan girl from a colonized land taken back to the colonizer homeland (and a POC at that), understands more than anyone what these three similar situated witch girls are going through - and she points out quite clearly to the (White) caretakers of the girls that she it isn't appropriate for her to be used to teach them how to be POC in a White world for such a White family.   This combination of optimism, charm, and sensibility makes Mika an easy character to root for and care for from the beginning, and it changes the story somewhat - the story is not about Mika's heart melting and learning to love, but for her to learn to let go and embrace the togetherness she's already once dreamed about and for her to decide to actually fight for it instead of trying to simply achieve it in simulacrum through her videos.  

And then there's Mika's romance with Jamie* which is done really really well and is so so charming, as Jamie's bitter heart is the one melted by Mika's optimism, in the reverse of the usual playbook.  Mika makes a big note about the difference between being Nice - saying the right thing to appease someone - and being Kind - genuinely acting out of caring for others - and with Jamie, his traumatic past makes him not Nice....but still doesn't prevent him from being Kind and trying to protect and care for the three orphan kids.  And so as Mika helps him and the kids, and he genuinely sees how his attraction for her might be right, and that he actually can let his pessimism and bitterness go around her, even if that means bearing some truths that hurt to tell.  It's a really rewarding romance that's just very very charming and adorable, with some solid sexiness at appropriate points, and it will make you very very happy to read.

*The other difference between this book and Klune's work is that the primary romance is M-F.  There are a pair of gay characters in the really charming older caretakers of the kids, but issues of queerness here are pretty much unexplored, especially the oddness of magic and witchery being limited solely to women and how that would work with non-cis or intersex people.*

The general plot of the book and how things go is a bit generic and predictable in many ways - one late twist is something you will expect once the setup is put down, and that one character is going to get involved in a certain way will be super obvious from really early on.  The non Jamie and Mika characters among the family have some charms, especially gay elderly couple Ian and his husband Ken, but are very barebones - even the three orphan girl witches, who have some precocious traits (Terracotta is rebellious, Rosetta wants to see the outside world and loves romances).  But these generic setups work well for the meat of this book, the romance, the found family, and the dealings with colonialism - like the way the Witches of Color were essentially taken from their homes by Lillian and then sort of left alone as if saving them from their homelands was something necessarily praiseworthy - which just really really works.  

So yeah, this is a lot of fun and the romance and found family parts are incredibly charming, to go along with some really well done themes. Well worth your time, and another winner from Mandanna despite some small flaws.  
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