This Spells Disaster

 This Spells Disaster by Tori Anne Martin, 368 pages.

Morgan Greenwood is a disaster witch with a massive crush on Rory Sandler, who recently quit professional spellcasting to mix up magical cocktails in Morgan's hometown. Her family isn't thrilled about this decision, so Morgan agrees to be her fake girlfriend for the upcoming regional witch festival to convince Rory's family that she's happier with her life now. Unfortunately, the "disaster" part of "disaster witch" appears in the form of Morgan messing up a perfectly normal relaxation potion and potentially giving Rory a love potion instead, leaving her trying to break the effects of the spell with as little collateral damage as possible.

I really expected to like this book. The blurb really sold me, and I was ready for a light, funny book for Halloween. Unfortunately I found it very difficult to read because most of the plot could have been avoided if Morgan didn't constantly make the worst decisions physically possible for no obvious reason. There's an amount of suspension of disbelief usually inherent to fake dating (it's usually a larger-than-life kind of premise), but there was an amount of frustration involved with the choices of this book that made it very difficult for me to get invested in finishing it at all. I could clearly see all of the plot twists of the last fifty pages coming from before Morgan even suspected she gave Rory a love potion, and given that it's in first person it feels hard to believe that Morgan didn't even consider any of the many ways there may have actually been no problem. Although I'm sad to say it, I don't think I can recommend this one.