Book Review: A Grimoire for Gamblers

A Grimoire for Gamblers, by Amanda Creiglow. I’m not going to give this a star rating, because my reaction to this one is twofold: It’s at least four-star well written, and I would advise avoiding it, because I find it morally toxic.

Two main reasons. First, the main character, Elizabeth, has no one she can trust in-story. No one, at all. From relatives to boyfriends to inhuman allies; if friendly, she either has to lie to them or they end up with their memories wiped. If not friendly, she generally has to smile and accept their company anyway, or risk being destroyed. The way the story keeps yin-yanging between “Max the charming wizard” and “Max, the guy who thinks he’s being nice when he offers to kill you peacefully so the vampiric spirit a graveling sicced on your father will finish taking its vengeance and the supernatural treaty holds, even though he could possibly stop it” is enough to make your head spin.

The second main reason is that the climax of the story hinges on gambling not just what you can’t afford to lose, but gambling with other people’s lives who never consented. Elizabeth bets not only her life, but her sister and her sister’s family’s lives on the outcome of a fight she knows won’t be fair, based on her read on the gambling demon in charge of the situation. That he favors the person who bets on the highest stakes. It’s sickening; worse because after she wins, the guy makes it quite clear he hopes to see what other bets she’ll make.

As someone who’s had to deal with other people’s addictive behavior, the climax of the story made me want to hit something.

But it’s the lack of trust and memory-wiping that grinds my gears even worse, because it robs the main character of the primary advantage humans have, in a world where every Thing else has magic. Our ability to work in groups, put together ideas and solutions that no one person can come up with alone, and watch each other’s backs. And beyond that, the mere fact of having someone else to vent to, to keep the pressure from driving you crazy. (An actual risk – though Elizabeth at least finds out her father wasn’t crazy, he was possessed. Cold comfort, now that he’s committed suicide and the spirit is killing other people.)

The worldbuilding that led to this, that at some point wizards and unnatural creatures went to war, and settled terms that normal humans were forbidden from magic, is something that just doesn’t square with how I understand humans and history, either. We have humans trying to work magic from earliest prehistory right up through modern day. If all supernaturals were as jump-the-gun nasty about successful attempts as we see in the book, there’d be blood painting the streets on a regular basis and no one would be able to cover it up. It also paints wizards as all inherently evil even though they’re supposed to be of human heritage as well, given their reaction to “completely innocent guy who just happened to be near something magical got cursed by spiteful supernatural with vampiric spirit” is not “zap spirit” but rather “let the spirit kill the guy”. Unless the spirit gets into a position to hurt them personally, in which case they zap it like a fly.

The author had this book up for free for a time on Amazon, likely as advertisement for the rest of the series. As far as I’m concerned, they can keep it – I’m getting this off my Kindle. Ugh.