Zana's Reviews > Evocation

Buddy read with Basil!

I'm glad Basil and I were on the same wavelength because this was a huge miss for us.

TLDR: I expected something along the lines of an adult version of Krystal Sutherland's The Invocations, sprinkled with the dark and suffocating vibes of Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House. But instead, this was all just #ThroupleProblems with sprinkles of the occult.

Worst of all, it read like a fanfic. Like David, Rhys, and Moira were stand-ins for original characters from an established story and the entire occult vibes was just set dressing.

One huge issue I had with this (that I also had with An Education in Malice) was that everything felt so lite when it came to the dark themes. I wanted something much more heavier and depressing, like how I felt when I read A Dowry of Blood.

But I got the feeling that ST Gibson was holding back so much. This felt like YA instead of Adult (minus some of the more explicit sex scenes). I'm so, so disappointed.

I was here for the magic and demons, but that took a huge backseat to the poly relationship. You can tell that the author did research on Moira's field of magic (astrology and being a medium), but for the darker types of magic, the author didn't really bother to dive too much into lore. The Lesser Key of Solomon was mentioned, but that was pretty much it. Chaos magic made an appearance, but it felt more like a soft launch for Book 2.

I was disappointed by the demon possession plotline. I thought it'd be a major part of the story, but like I said with the above, it felt very watered down and tame. David sounded like he caught magic covid instead of being cursed by his ancestor and possessed by a centuries old demon.

It would've been great if there had been some kind of dialogue with the demon, or if the demon actually manifested as a real being on any sort of plane (physical, astral, whatever).

Idk.

And at the end, it felt like Moira just existed for the sake of having a WOC character to add diversity to a book about two queer white dudes. I actually loved her character, but lbr, the major focus was on David and Rhys.

Moira was basically the hinge that allowed Rhys and David to get back together. Like she just gave up and realized that Rhys and David were meant to be.

And what was even worse, most of the time Moira ended up playing the mom role to two grown men who acted like teenage boys.

Gross.

The angst between Rhys and David was annoying to read about. And somehow, I ended up liking David and Moira's platonic relationship much more than either Rhys/David or Rhys/Moira. Lbr, Rhys was such a mid love interest for either David or Moira. Hell, I was rooting for David/Moira (like those two seriously vibed), but, alas, David was strictly gay.

Oh well.

I highly doubt that I'll pick up the sequel because I didn't care about the relationships at all.

But the other day, Basil told me there was a goddamn PREQUEL to this novel that established our three MCs. That wasn't mentioned in any promos that I remember. Wth. And judging by the reviews, it wasn't received well.

Basil and I said we weren't too interested in requesting anymore of the author's arcs, but we're interested in looking into the trad pubbed version of Odd Spirits just to see if it catches our eye or sparks our interest. Knowing me, I might find it as meh as Evocation.

Anyway.

If you like contemporary romances with a splash of fantasy, then this is for you. If not, I'd skip this.

Thank you to Angry Robot and NetGalley for this arc.