The Grimoire of Grave Fates

 If you follow my reviews, you’ll notice that there is a pattern. While I would like to pride myself on reading everything and anything, I do have a fascination with the murder mystery genres. An anthology would be right up my alley.

Grimoire of Grave Fates follows the investigation of the murder of Professor Septimius Dropwort, who is clearly hated by just about everyone. Which makes sense because Dropwort is obviously prejudiced. Each chapter is told from a different student’s perspective. Each student is so diverse in their personal ways but connected in one: they are all Chosen Ones.

While this novel is Young Adult, I would caution that there are quite a few content/trigger warnings. Examples are abuse, racism, discrimination, graphic injuries, thievery, premature birth, drugs, mental health disorders, and more. And while I agree that all of these topics SHOULD be talked about openly, I would advise that there are plenty of adults that the young adult feels comfortable talking to.

There are many good things about the book. Each diverse character, their backgrounds, the subtexts of their struggles. I also enjoyed the structure of each chapter being written by a different author and told from a different perspective. I would have liked to know Harry Potter from his classmates’ POV at times. However, 18 different students become a bit much. I wanted to hear more from some students and didn’t understand the point of others. It also led to the pacing being slow for me, because if the students overlapped then I found myself going back through to remember who was who. Maybe if there were half the number of students and each was given two chapters? 

Overall, I rate this novel 3 out of 5 stars, but found new authors to follow.