The Unwritten Rules of Magic

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Synopsis

With masterful storytelling, THE UNWRITTEN RULES OF MAGIC offers a poignant look at family, love, grief, and fate through the lives of three generations of women.

Emerson Clarke can’t remember a time when she felt in control of her life. Her father—a celebrated author—blew in and out of her childhood like a hurricane until he got Alzheimer’s. Her mother numbed loneliness with gin. And recently, her teen daughter has shut her out without explanation. The only place Emerson has ever been in charge is in front of the keyboard where, as a ghostwriter, she dictates everything that happens on the page. If only she could arrange reality the same way, life could be perfect. An impossible fantasy—or so she believes until she makes a startling discovery.

After her father’s wake, Emerson steals her father’s vintage typewriter—the very one he’d forbidden anyone to touch—and tests its keys by typing out a frivolous wish. After it comes true the very next day, she tries another. When those words also spring to life, she becomes obsessed with using the typewriter to engineer happiness for herself and her daughter. Easier said than done. 

As Emerson shapes her real-life circumstances, she uncovers disturbing truths about her family’s history and the unexpected cost for each story-come-true. She should destroy the typewriter, but when her daughter’s secret finally emerges, Emerson is torn between paying the price for bending fate and embracing the uncertainty of an unscripted life.

Synopsis source: The StoryGraph

Review

Genre(s): Magical Realism, Fiction
HB&W Rating: 3 stars
View on StoryGraph, Goodreads
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The blurb for The Unwritten Rules of Magic promises a story for fans of The Midnight Library and In Five Years. While I haven’t read In Five Years, I am a big fan of The Midnight Library and of magical realism more broadly. At its best, magical realism uses the impossible to illuminate very real truths, encouraging us to question our assumptions about ourselves, others, and the moral frameworks we move through the world with. It reminds us that there is magic in everyday life if we are willing to see it, and that perspective itself can be transformative. In many ways, that is what all stories strive to do, but magical realism often takes that exploration one step further for me.

Unfortunately, I am not entirely sure The Unwritten Rules of Magic fully succeeds in that regard.

There is a lot here that I appreciated. Harper Ross clearly has an important message to convey, and she does not shy away from heavy or difficult topics. The overarching theme, encouraging readers to loosen their grip on control, to live more fully, and to recognize the magic in both the perfection and the chaos of everyday life, is a meaningful one. Still, while I liked the message and admired much of its intent, I struggled with the execution and, in particular, with the main character.

The premise itself is very appealing: a magical typewriter that grants wishes, paired with the familiar but effective rule that magic always comes at a cost, whether you understand that cost or not. Every action has consequences. Some readers have wished the book leaned more heavily into the magic itself, but that was not my issue. My frustration stemmed from how quickly Emerson seemed to grasp the danger of the typewriter and continued to use it anyway.

Emerson frames the typewriter as an addiction, but I did not quite buy that. What felt more accurate was that control was the real addiction. As the daughter of a narcissist and an alcoholic, her desire to control outcomes, relationships, and pain makes a great deal of sense. Intellectually, her behavior tracks. Emotionally, it became increasingly difficult to sit with, especially because insight did not lead to meaningful change.

What frustrated me most was that even when the typewriter granted Emerson deeper understanding, particularly regarding her mother and her father’s manipulation and its lasting impact, it took her far too long to translate that insight into changed behavior. The book repeatedly shows her gaining awareness, naming the problem, and articulating wisdom, while continuing to act in ways that contradict it. That disconnect began to feel less like complexity and more like immaturity in her relationship with her mother, and less like a caring, supportive parent and more like a controlling one in her relationship with Sadie. This made it harder for me to connect with her as a protagonist.

Of all Emerson’s relationships, I struggled most with her dynamic with her daughter, Sadie. As a parent of a teenager myself, I understand how delicate that stage is and how difficult it can be to know when to step in and when to step back. I appreciated the growth Emerson shows toward the end of the novel, but throughout much of the story she repeatedly does exactly what Sadie asks her not to do. I understand the impulse to fix things, to force connection, and to protect your child from pain. But part of parenting, perhaps the hardest part, is recognizing that you cannot control their growth. You can only be there.

While I could understand Emerson’s behavior on an intellectual level, emotionally it did not sit right with me, and I often found her deeply irritating. I think this might have been mitigated if we had been given more insight into her relationship with Sadie before things began to fracture, some glimpse of what they were like when things were good. That context might have made it easier to empathize when everything began to fall apart. That said, Emerson’s reactions do feel consistent with someone raised in the environment she was, and I appreciated how compassionately her relationship with Sadie ultimately resolves.

The novel’s first half feels lighter and more open to possibility, while the second half turns inward, focusing on Emerson’s relationships with her mother, her daughter, and her father, even posthumously. I appreciated how the typewriter ultimately facilitated closure around her father and opened the door to a more hopeful, compassionate understanding of her mother. That arc felt earned, even if Emerson’s growth along the way felt frustratingly slow.

There is a great deal of wisdom woven throughout this book, much of it voiced by Emerson herself, which often made her continued poor choices all the more frustrating. Sawyer, unfortunately, felt flat and largely unnecessary. His contributions leaned more toward preachy than illuminating, and he never fully came alive as a character for me.

In the end, The Unwritten Rules of Magic tackles weighty themes and offers a thoughtful message, but that message sometimes gets lost beneath the emotional heaviness of the story and the frustrations of its protagonist. While I did not particularly like Emerson, I was still rooting for her and for everyone else by the final pages. This is a book with heart and insight, even if it did not quite work for me as well as I had hoped.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an eARC of this title in exchange for my honest review.

Until next time,

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