All Our Hidden Gifts

January 1, 2021

Gr 9 Up-Getting detention is not out of character for Maeve Chambers, but when she is assigned to clean out the closet in the basement of her private school, she finds a mixtape and a deck of tarot cards that set her on a dark path. O'Donoghue expertly blurs the lines between the real and the unreal as readers are swept up in Maeve's journey to undo the wrongs she thoughtlessly causes, from causing the disappearance of her former best friend to unintentionally empowering the cultish leader of a conservative youth group that promotes hate speech and cruelty. With a deft hand, O'Donoghue crafts a narrative that is steeped in both classic gothic atmosphere and contemporary representation: Maeve, who is white, grapples with her privilege against the backdrop of the paranormal as she considers the ways in which Roe, her nonbinary love interest; Fiona, her Filipina friend; Jo, her queer sister; and Lily, her former BFF with hearing loss have to navigate the complex and sometimes hostile landscape of modern Ireland. Stefanie Caponi's tarot card illustrations are hauntingly perfect companions to the text. Much like the novel, the cards appear deceptively familiar at first glance. The stakes are high, the narrative is nuanced, and the climax and resolution are refreshingly unexpected. VERDICT Expect readers to fall into this blurred tale of the normal and the paranormal.-Jen McConnel, Queen's Univ., Ont.

Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 18, 2021
Ghostly menace, queer liberation, and sweet nonbinary romance all find room in this modern Irish contemporary. Sixteen-year-old Maeve Chambers, who is white, is behind in class; estranged from her Deaf, white best friend, Lily O’Callaghan; and sentenced to clean her crumbling girls’ school’s junk closet after throwing a shoe at her teacher. But there, she finds a decades-old tarot deck—and her first real talent. With her new business partner, biracial (Filipina/white) actor Fiona Buttersfield, Maeve starts making friends and money hand over fist reading tarot. But the deck keeps appearing suddenly, and its ominous extra card—the Housekeeper—is drawn in Lily’s reading just before Lily disappears. As the Housekeeper infects Maeve’s dreams, she must navigate a homophobic American evangelist cult, folkloric components, her growing attraction to Lily’s genderqueer sibling, and her own hidden gifts to bring Lily home. O’Donoghue (Scenes of a Graphic Nature) infuses fierce integrity and an understanding of self-worth into a hilarious voice. While at times overfull, the novel’s brilliant connections between friendship, boundaries, and the vulnerability of loneliness provide a vibrant compass for fans of Sarah Rees Brennan or Derry Girls. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 14–up. Agent: Bryony Woods, Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary.

September 1, 2021
When Maeve finds a tarot deck in the basement of her Kilbeg, Ireland, school, she immediately feels a connection to the cards and begins telling fortunes for the girls in her class. Lily, Maeve's ex-best friend, is peer-pressured into getting a reading, and when the pair's conflicts come out into the open, Maeve tells Lily that she wishes she'd just disappear. The next school day, Lily is nowhere to be found. Maeve teams up with Lily's musically talented, gender-nonconforming sibling to solve the mystery of the girl's disappearance, which they believe has some connection to the sinister "Housekeeper" card that exists in Maeve's deck but isn't part of traditional tarot decks. They encounter a conservative cult and must sort out major misunderstandings to discover Lily's whereabouts and uncover other truths, including some they're hiding from themselves. This atmospheric, witty, disarming tale is a page-turning dive into occult forces portrayed alongside teenage concerns. Both modern Irish politics and the meanings of tarot cards are incorporated into the story without becoming burdensome. Impeccable dialogue and true-to-life characters make this a great choice for YA readers with a mystical bent. Sarah Berman

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from April 1, 2021
Grades 8-10 *Starred Review* Maeve, an average girl at St. Bernadette's Catholic school in Ireland, is always in trouble for her jocular personality and because of how difficult it is for her to learn regular school subjects. After she throws her shoe at a teacher (though, as she objects, "I didn't hit him!"), she's given the punishment of cleaning out a closet in the moldering basement of the Victorian house where her school is located. Along with decades of junk, she finds plenty of 1990s contraband . . . and a pack of tarot cards. Thanks to YouTube, she learns the meanings behind the different cards quickly, and is telling fortunes (for a price) at school the next day. In the weeks that follow, Maeve embarks on a tentative romance with Roe, the elder, genderfluid sibling of her ex-best friend, Lily. When Lily is drawn to the tarot readings, old hurts resurface, and Maeve wishes Lily gone--a wish that, weirdly, seems to come true. Did the creepy Housekeeper tarot card come to life and steal Lily? Is Maeve truly a witch? There's an air of creepy mysticism to this uncommonly well-crafted urban fantasy, and O'Donoghue deftly weaves real-world and paranormal story aspects together. Recommended for all libraries.

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Starred review from January 1, 2021
An Irish teen grapples with past misdeeds and newfound ties to magic. When 16-year-old Maeve discovers a deck of tarot cards stashed with a mixtape of moody indie music from 1990, she starts giving readings for her classmates at her all-girls private school. Though her shame over dumping her strange friend Lily during an attempt to climb the social ladder at St. Bernadette's is still palpable, it doesn't stop her from trying to use the tarot in her favor to further this goal. However, after speaking harsh words to Lily during a reading, Maeve is horrified when her former friend later disappears. As she struggles to understand the forces at play within her, classmate Fiona proves to be just the friend Maeve needs. Detailed, interesting characters carry this contemporary story of competing energy and curses. Woven delicately throughout are chillingly eerie depictions of the Housekeeper, a figure who shows up on an extra card in the deck, echoing the White Lady legend from Irish folklore. Even more disturbing is an organization of young people led by a homophobic but charismatic figurehead intent on provoking backlash against Ireland's recent civil rights victories. Most characters are White; Fiona is biracial, with a Filipina mother and White Irish father. Roe, Maeve's love interest and Lily's sibling, is a bisexual, genderqueer person who is a target for intolerance in their small city of Kilbeg. An immersive tale of brave, vulnerable teens facing threats both real and fantastic. (Paranormal. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2021
When Maeve finds a tarot deck in the basement of her Kilbeg, Ireland, school, she immediately feels a connection to the cards and begins telling fortunes for the girls in her class. Lily, Maeve's ex-best friend, is peer-pressured into getting a reading, and when the pair's conflicts come out into the open, Maeve tells Lily that she wishes she'd just disappear. The next school day, Lily is nowhere to be found. Maeve teams up with Lily's musically talented, gender-nonconforming sibling to solve the mystery of the girl's disappearance, which they believe has some connection to the sinister "Housekeeper" card that exists in Maeve's deck but isn't part of traditional tarot decks. They encounter a conservative cult and must sort out major misunderstandings to discover Lily's whereabouts and uncover other truths, including some they're hiding from themselves. This atmospheric, witty, disarming tale is a page-turning dive into occult forces portrayed alongside teenage concerns. Both modern Irish politics and the meanings of tarot cards are incorporated into the story without becoming burdensome. Impeccable dialogue and true-to-life characters make this a great choice for YA readers with a mystical bent.

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)