A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

the book is funny and has an intriguing premise which i appreciated, but the ending felt very rushed and left a lot of threads untied for me. the villains felt two-dimensional, like they were just villains for the sake of the plot. then again, maybe i’m expecting too much from a book that’s targeted at younger readers.

i’m also disappointed with the portrayal of the secondary antagonists as uncivilised, barbarian cannibals. that blatantly colonialist rhetoric felt very out of place in a book with generally progressive, anti-fascist themes.

the book also could’ve used better editing. i noticed that characters had names swapped or changed out midway and there were quite a few punctuation errors.

The young teenage baker and bread wizard Mona finds herself in a series of events that spiral out of control in a swirl of politics and war.

As far as YA books this is pretty cute and decent. It has an interesting take on magic, and the main characters were compelling. There was a bit of a lean into toilet humor at points that was kind of eye-roll worthy, but overall, pretty enjoyable.

This was a quick and fun story that I think would appeal to young readers. The plot was straightforward and clearly explained: a bit too clearly for my tastes, with heavy-handed social commentary, but then I’m certainly not young! I liked that Mona had a good relationship with her aunt and uncle. She did came across as younger than her stated 14, especially in the medieval-ish setting. She struck me more as an observer and pushed around by circumstances (and other people’s actions/decisions) than having her own agency, which added to the “young” feel. The gingerbread man was fun.