Spoiler-Free Review

If you’re looking for a low fantasy novel with unique voice and unlikable characters (positive), give Gifted & Talented a try.

What’s Gifted & Talented about?

Three miserable siblings reconnect over the death of their magitech billionaire father. As they contend with the will, they must also reconcile their own pasts and futures, including those of the people caught in their orbit.

This was a surprise for me.

The word that came to mind when I started this story: fresh. While yes, it is a hefty tome (500 pages) for what is essentially a family drama and dissection of the characters, I felt hooked by three things: 1) Blake’s narrative voice and the creative choices around that voice, 2) the marriage of magic and technology into a corporate hellscape eerily similar to our own reality, and 3) the unpleasantness of the main characters that is at once believable and interesting.

First, let me say: this is the first Olivie Blake novel that has worked for me. I tried two others before, One For My Enemy and Masters of Death, neither of which I finished because I couldn’t get into them. While I can see some of her hallmark experimental writing style in this one also, I feel it worked best for this particular story.

At first I was wary of its narration. It actively talks to you, the reader, throughout the story, adding commentary to each scene. So, it doesn’t shy away from exposition. Or profanity. But when I came to the reason for this choice, it all made sense. This story gave purpose to its voice, and I think that enriched the experience. I also enjoyed the times where it deviated even from itself. For example, delivering some scenes as if it’s a screenplay, or single-sentence chapters. I liked that.

The main characters are the adult children of a mega-wealthy corporate CEO, and boy do they feel like it. Meredith, the oldest, is about go down with the ship of her invention that she committed corporate fraud to fund. Arthur is a politician who feels impotent in his role and desperate to be loved. And finally, Eilidh (pronounced ay-lee), is a former ballerina who hasn’t coped well with an injury and subsequent loss of purpose. And each has friends and lovers who hover around them like ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.

Not to mention, each of the three siblings has their own flare for magic, sometimes with devastating effect. All of this created a cocktail of drama and interpersonal problems that kept my attention.

I think this is a unique story that won’t work for everyone, but I liked it for what it was and what it tried to do.

Should you read Gifted & Talented?

From what I can tell, while this is absolutely an Olivie Blake novel in writing style, it deviates from her usual brand. Perhaps that’s why it worked for me when her others haven’t. If you have liked her other novels, maybe approach with caution. At least compared to the two I’ve tried, this felt more mature in both themes and delivery. But also, this is contemporary low fantasy, a family drama without any of the romantic flair which Blake is more known for.

If you like character-driven stories where there’s less of an external plot and more of an analysis of each person, the spokes of their various relationships, and the neuroses that plague them, then you’ll love this. Especially if you’d like it to feel like a snapshot of our current reality without necessarily being about our current reality.

This is super low fantasy, which means the magic is barely a feature. If you’re hoping for a lot of magic, or an atmosphere of magic, this won’t have that. If you prefer less magic, then this will be right up your alley. It definitely reads more as a contemporary fiction than a fantasy.