A Fistful of Sky

Gypsum is part of a magical family. When members get their magical powers, they are said to "transition." The powers can vary, and sometimes they are positive and sometimes they are negative. It looks like Gypsum is going to be without powers, though, until she ends up getting her abilities when she gets to be twenty.

It turns out she has the power to curse things, but the curses end up being sort of strange. She changes a rock into chalk; she and her siblings draw things which end up coming alive (one makes a cake which isn't actually alive but it was apparently delicious) and makes herself some gloves. She follows this with a giant grapefruit that growls.

Then she learns that if she says "damn" at something it disintegrates. Then she curses a rock and it turns into a small duplicate of her which then causes her to grow incredibly fat (for a short while, anyhow.)

There's an incredible amount of humor in the novel, too. Gypsum has to curse something (the energy builds up in her until she uses it) and she curses a laptop which grows sort of a body then touches her forehead, reorganizing her mental processes and finding a way to help her bleed off excess curse energy.

The thing is that what she has is a curse ability, and that implies things can go wrong, which they do. Consistently. Yet Gypsum is a very nice person and doesn't really want to cause anyone harm.

If all this wasn't complicated enough for her to deal with (plus how it affects each family member), there's a double of hers that might be good, might be evil, might be both.

There is so much in this book that a thorough review would be way too long. Just get the book. It's absolutely one of the best young adult novels I have ever read!

Main Index

Yadult Index