Book Review | The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Lily Albrecht is a novelist turned rare bookseller who’s down on her luck and in need of cash, so when she hears of an elusive manuscript that promises unrivaled pleasure and power, she can’t pass the opportunity up. She teams up with an archivist to try and track it down. However, magic can have unintended consequences and there are those who would do anything to get their hands on the book.

The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran by is a delightfully bizarre occult thriller about sex magic.

The premise sounded incredible and I wanted to love this book so badly, but I ended up feeling really torn.

The positives? Gran has an innate knack for making keen observations about people and for crafting well-fleshed out characters.

However, the dialogue in the first half of the novel comes off as amateurish and is filled with far too many interjectives and filler words--like the characters say wow more than Owen Wilson. There's this weird disconnect between the dialogue and the more sophisticated writing in the first-person narration. It's like they came from two different books, and it really threw me off.

(Granted, I did receive an early copy, so hopefully the dialogue is more consistently polished in the official book.)

Overall, The Book of the Most Precious Substance is an imperfect but seductive book that’ll appease fans of Brand New Cherry Flavor.

Thank you, NetGalley and Dreamland Books, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Details:

Publication Date : February 8, 2022

Publisher : Dreamland Books

ASIN : B09FLWXBFB

Pages : 284

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