I'm a Gay Wizard in the City of the Nightmare King

Thank you Netgalley for the eARC of this book.

I firstly have to say that I didn't finish this book.

When I initially requested the ARC from Netgalley, I was unaware that it was the second book in a series. My mistake (holds hands up) one I have learned from and now check over at Goodreads.But I digress...

The author informed me that this book could be read independently from 'I'm a Gay Wizard' when I mentioned I was struggling with understanding what was happening and the brief recap that started the book. A warning light should have been when I saw that the author had also explained in the prior to chapter one that he had renamed certain species though why I wasn't sure.

The 'recap' left me utterly confused and I chose to read the first book (review is on goodreads 2 stars) to see if that helped. Sadly it didn't and I found the story of book two to be as confusing and disorientating as the first book.

Thankfully, there wasn't a repeat of the vicious assault (or wasnt prior to me stopping reading) but there were mentions of upsetting incidents for our now four main characters (Johnny, Alison, Hunter and Blake) including the death of Alison's mother whose illness had been mentioned in book one. Whilst I understand that books cannot always be happy 24/7, I felt like this girl had already gone through so much and the death was unnecessarily cruel. Whilst it does set up Alison's distancing from Johnny; her 360° personality turn and distrust of her longterm friend wasnt believable.

I tried to continue reading so that I could do two things, give an honest and full review; and also see if there would be light finally at the very dark and somewhat disastrous journey Johnny and his friends had been through in book one. It instead felt like I was wading through quicksand mentally and wasnt enjoying the story at all.

Like its prequel, book two needs more world building and contrast from all the teenage angst and darkness.

The arc also features repeated grammatical mistakes which I hope are caught before its release.

I'm a Gay Wizard is the story of two teenagers Johnny and his best friend, Alison.

When I had read the book description of the book, I was intrigued as I haven't come across many books for teenagers that focus on characters who aren't traditionally CISGender and heterosexual. Johnny is gay and incredibly comfortable about his sexuality and Alison is transgender and again, comfortable with who she is. A wonderful and welcome set of characters that many teenagers will relate to.

However, there is absolutely no warning anywhere (the cover is bright and cheerful etc) of just how dark the story gets. There is incidents that are clearly triggering subject matters as Johnny and Alison are targeted by bullies and there is a somewhat graphic telling of hate crimes as the two are assaulted due to transphobia and homophobia. I am an adult and the episode left myself traumatised as I have been a victim of such a hate crime and I can only imagine how someone who is newly 'out of the closet' or working through the emotional turmoil that comes with processing your gender or sexuality would feel reading these horrific events.

After reading about one such moment, I forced myself to continue reading in the hope that retribution would come with also moments of fun and excitement for the two teenagers. 'I'm a Gay Wizard' felt like it needed several rewrites to iron out inconsistencies and perhaps balance the darkness of the story with more moments of light and fun. The story often didn't make sense and I was left with many questions which went unresolved.

I had hoped that from the description, there would be lots of vivid and varied examples of the two performing magic. This wasn't the case, prior to the two disappearing, they only perform two spells - one is a failure and the other so disastrous that they bring about destruction to the area around them. I was wanting more and was disappointed by what magic did occur - it just seemed pretty mediocre and there was no explanation given as to just why the spell the two had performed had gone so awry and drawn the attention of the Institute.

I felt as others have said in reviews that there is a pretty obvious plot-hole when it comes to the Legacy children who attend the institute. I figured out they maybe similar to the purebloods found in a certain series of novels about a wizard; but wondered why they were elite? Were they automatically magically superior to those born to non-magical people or were the children out there who didn't possess magic? Again, it felt like there was a lack of information that other books focused on magical beings ensure is given to the reader about the people and places featured in the tale.

I also wondered how the non-Legacy students succeed in school, or, why are they automatically looked down upon because they don't come from a magical family? I could go on with my questions but there are too many.

This story could have been so good, could have given gay and trans teenagers two characters to relate to in a positive manner and have a fantasy novel to have fun with. Sadly, it lacked so much to make it a series I want to delve back into.