I have heard so much about A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking and I’m so glad I read it. While it’s not exactly what I thought it was, this YA story is about unlikely heroes. But it doesn’t shy away from the sacrifices and price to being a hero. Keep reading this book review of A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking for my full thoughts.
Summary
Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance.
But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…
Review
I started off with A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking thinking, oh this is cute and fun. But that morphed once the story unfolded and we have a plot about the hatred of wizards, the consequences of what happens when adults don’t act, and the sacrifices of heroism. If I was a teen, I might not have picked up on that. I might have just been carried away by the idea of animate gingerbread man and this whimsical magic in A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking.
It’s a book which balances whimsy and the serious. We see fairy tale aspects like unlikey heroes and magical training, but we also witness how we can rally, but never be the same. That being a hero, especially when we don’t want to, always demands something in return. It reminds me of that scene in Lord of the Rings where a character says that they wish the burden had never been theirs. And, in many ways, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking gives off that same vibe. It’s an action packed YA story which offers many different perspectives and lenses.
(Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links. For more information you can look at the Policy page. If you’re uncomfortable with that, know you can look up the book on any of the sites below to avoid the link)
Patricia Santomasso does a phenomenal job at narrating in a way that balances this line of whimsy and reality. This childlike naivety and also the weight of what is being asked of her. Asking critical questions about what we would do to amass power, how ambition curdles, I definitely understand the hype around A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. Find A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.