Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone this wonderful Wednesday? Things here are about the same. Still waiting. Still tired. Anyway, it’s not time for random complaints. It’s the last Wednesday of September, so it’s book review time! This month, I went for some fluffy, gay fantasy. I didn’t realize it was actually the second book in a loosely connected series when I requested it, but it stands fairly well on it’s own. I just hate reading things out of order because if I do go back to the first book, it’s spoiled. But I digress. Extraordinary Quests for Amateur Witches by Kayla Cottingham was released by Delacorte Press on the 23rd (yesterday). As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s do the thing.

Extraordinary Quests for Amateur Witches follows Kieran, who is currently reeling from a series of unfortunate events, as he accidentally curses his (on a break) boyfriend and sets off on an impossible task to fix it. The task? Finding a panacea (cure all) which may or may not exist. To make matters worse, this quest is also his Calling, the test of his own choosing that the Witch’s Council will use to determine whether or not he keeps his magic. Why did he choose something so difficult? But at least he gets to go adventuring with old friends and even a new one. Why does the new one have to be so attractive, though? Kieran has no idea what he’s doing. Hopefully, he can figure it out before everything falls apart.

The plot. It’s cute and predictable. The romance is a little too slow burn for me, but it’s adorable. The main part of the story is broken down into three tasks, then the culmination and climax. I went right through the first two tasks, but by the third one, I had a little trouble continuing. It was just so clear what was going to happen that I lost a little interest. The climax was also super disappointing. This is supposed to be all about Kieran growing and becoming the hero, but when it comes to the final boss (if you’ll excuse the video game reference), someone else takes care of everything while he cries over his inability to save someone. It felt lazy.

The characters. I loved most of the characters. Especially Kieran and Sebastian. Seaweed was my favorite, of course. I thought Ash was an asshole and not worth all the angst, but maybe if I had read the first book, I’d feel different. If he was even in it. There was also a baddie who shows up for like five pages that was useless. They were supposed to be this formidable opponent, but the way they showed up and disappeared was weak. They were literally used to make Kieran freak out about the fact that Sebastian had dated before, then thrown back into the ether like they had never existed. They could’ve been a much larger part of the story. Adelaide also feels completely random, but I’m almost positive that’s because I didn’t read the first book where she seems to play a big role.

The writing was good. There was nothing mind blowing about it, but it flowed nicely and made for an easy read.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the first half or so of Extraordinary Quests for Amateur Witches, then got bored with it. I seriously thought about going back and reading the first book, but this book basically spoils the whole thing, so I probably won’t.

Overall, I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. It wasn’t bad per se, it just wasn’t for me. If you enjoy super light gay fluff fantasy, check it out. But there are a lot of better ones out there.