All Our Hidden Gifts (The Gifts)

I find O'Donoghue's observations of human behavior to be so spot on. I really enjoy her discussions of books on her podcast and I became curious to read her own works. A YA novel is expected to have a certain lightness to it and this story has that but it's also dealing with deep topics and emotions. Her characters are very realistic and thoughtfully written. The relationships and challenges of these teens will remind anyone of their own high school days. Intertwined with all of that is magic and mystery and I really cared about the fate of all the main characters. I look forward to the rest of the trilogy!

I loved this book! I accidentally bought the second one at Books A Million and had to read the first one before I could crack into it, as you do. This story has provided me days worth of comfort, enjoyment, and fun, but a lifetime of memorable plot. I may be an adult, but I love YA literature. This book is definitely one I recommend. As a long time practicing witch, I found it inspiring and thoughtful.

To be honest i liked this book more at the beginning. It isnt a bad book and the characters are really well rounded. And the author is a fantastic writer. The book kepr me hooked the whole time. But i just wasnt crazy about the ending.

One of the best books of the year.

I love YA literature. You never know what you'll get. I love everything witchery, the characters were well rounded they are very likable, but I found them to have love/hate relations like the human antagonist and everything was developed wonderfully. It gave off a younger version of Harry Potter then again this is a YA Book. I loved her attention to character development, plot, and everything to make this story flow. It sent my mind into a different reality.

Full transparency, I picked up this book based on the gorgeous cover art alone. I mean look at it! I knew very little about the story beforehand which in the end enhanced my experience of the slowly unraveling mystery at the heart of this book. Maeve, a student at an all girls Irish Cahtolic school, discovers a vintage tarot deck hidden in some dark corner of the crumbling school building. Soon she discovers her talent for tarot and experiences popularity for the first time as her classmates clamor for readings. But when she gives an especially dramatic reading to her ex-best friend Lily, Lily goes missing and the opinion of her schoolmates turns against Maeve. Now she’s got to figure out where Lily went and what darkness is taking over her town.While this was slow to start for me, the characters were interesting enough to draw me in and keep me going. And once the plot really kicked in with magic and cults and seances oh my! Well I simply couldn’t put it down. There’s some really interesting commentary going on that is both specific to Ireland's Catholic vs Protestant history but also more universal to how religion can be weaponized against particular groups. There’s also some generational stuff - how young people are targeted by radicals - that felt really apt for our current moment in history.But really, the heart and soul of this story is teen friendship, especially between teen girls. There’s a lot of teen angst here but also a lot of tenderness and vulnerability. Lily and Maeve’s relationship captures so much of what it means to be in a teen girl friendship. How it can be so insular and comforting but turn sour on a dime. It really made me nostalgic for the magic of those young friendships when the stakes seem so high and when you’re just trying to figure it all out but mostly trying to figure yourself out. Definitely going to stick around for the sequel. ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

A good story that keeps you reading. The main characters are likeable and the human antagonist is someone that today walks the streets spewing hate for power and profit.Looking forward to next chapter....

Unlike her successful and much older siblings, Maeve Chambers has never been known as an exemplary student. While Maeve and her former best friend Lily O’Callaghan both made it out of the slow reading class where they met, school is still a struggle for Maeve. A lot of things are a struggle for her when "sometimes frustration and rage surge through [Maeve], sparking out in ways [she] can’t predict or control."Adrift at her Catholic school, St. Bernadette's, where she struggles to keep up with classwork and make new friends after her estrangement from Lily, Maeve is familiar with detention. "The story of how [Maeve] ended up with the Chokey Card Tarot Consultancy can be told in four detentions, three notes sent home, two bad report cards, and one Tuesday afternoon that ended with [her] locked in a cupboard." After locating a mysterious deck of tarot cards while cleaning out said cupboard, Maeve discovers an unexpected knack for interpreting the cards for herself and classmates earning a certain notoriety (and some pocket money) as her reputation grows. Every card is easy to learn and understand except for one: The Housekeeper--a card that has no known meaning in any tarot guide Maeve can find.What starts as a mysterious extra card soon invokes disastrous results when Maeve is goaded into offering a reading to Lily in front of their entire class. The Housekeeper’s appearance leads to harsh words between the former friends before Lily's sudden disappearance.Without a clear explanation for what happened to Lily, Maeve knows she's an obvious person of interest in the case. As she tries to understand what happened to Lily and if it connects to the sudden increased popularity of a local fundamentalist group called the Children of Brigid, Maeve realizes that she, and the Housekeeper card, may have played a bigger role in Lily’s disappearance than she realized.With help from Lily's older brother Rory (Roe to those closest to him) and new friend Fiona, Maeve will have to uncover the truth behind the Housekeeper and her own affinity for magic if she wants to bring Lily home. Maeve describes Fiona as having an Irish first name, an English last name (Buttersfield), brown skin from her Filipina mother and limited "patience for other people’s bullshit" as many people try to fit her into various boxes. Most of the rest of the cast is presumed white.All Our Hidden Gifts is Caroline O'Donoghue's YA debut and the projected start of a series. Find it on Bookshop.Black and white illustrations by Stefanie Caponi of different tarot cards--including the infamous Housekeeper--are included throughout the novel. Readers will learn tarot basics along with Maeve as she begins to interpret cards while readers familiar with tarot will recognize key symbology and common card meanings. Readers especially well-versed in tarot might also recognize the cover artwork by Lisa M. Sterle, the artist behind the Modern Witch Tarot deck and guide journal.O'Donoghue folds many different elements into this often sprawling narrative that tries to unravel the dual mysteries of Lily's disappearance and the Housekeeper card while also tackling increased intolerance throughout the Irish city of Kilbeg as escalated by the Children of Brigid and their eerily savvy American leader, Aaron. Mysticism and folklore add another layer to this already packed story as one character asserts "every culture you can think of has some version of the White Lady" whether or not she is called the Housekeeper.Against this larger backdrop, Maeve tries to understand her--and the Housekeeper's--role in Kilbeg's unrest while navigating her new friendship with Fiona. Maeve’s fledgling romance with Roe--who sees his pronouns and gender identity as negotiable as he works on expressing his truest self with his chosen name and genderqueer fashion—adds some sweetness to an otherwise grim story trying to find Lily.Flashbacks to the events leading up to Maeve and Lily's falling out contrast with the tense present as the story builds to a dramatic conclusion that readers can only hope will be followed with a second book.Possible Pairings: The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke, A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell, Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno, These Witches Don't Burn by Isabel SterlingThis piece originally appeared in the Washington Independent Review of Books

I LOVED THIS BOOK. I already have an interest in the arcana and this book was not only respectful but actually very detailed and I inadvertently picked up a few bits! The main characters were incredibly likeable and I felt it dealt with inclusion incredibly well rather than it feeling forced in to the book, it was just natural. The storyline was brilliant and I super , super hope there is a follow-up exploring how it ended. Read in one sitting, best book I've read for a long while.

I’m not a Young Adult, but I loved this. It brought back the intensity of my own nerdy teenage years trying to find out who I was and where I fitted in. Its such a joy coming across an author who can do plot, believable characters and dialogue that snaps along and the whole thing feels grounded in modern day Ireland. Also not a book that feels tweaked around by editors as so many seem to right now. Buy this book, don’t be put off by the YA tag - I would have LOVED this when I was 15 but I love it now too.

It was different to what I thought it would be about, but it was well written and enjoyable. The characters were real and relatable, you felt for them and could feel all of their emotions. They also had POC and LGBTQ+ people in it who felt like fleshed out characters and not just tacked in there just cuz.

Well written book, I enjoyed the read and I think my teens will love the up to date references to teen relationships and being aware of accepting people for who they are.

I am impressed.