White is for Magic: A Book Review

White is for Magic takes place a year after Laurie Faria Stolarz's first book in the series Blue is for Nightmares. After a girl is murdered in a plot to kidnap Stacey's best friend Drea, the private high school receives a lot of bad press and many students are pulled out of the school. However, ghost and cult groupies flock to the school to replace those students who decided to leave. A little before the one year anniversary of the death of Veronica Leeman Stacey begins to have nightmares once more. This time the nightmares feature both Veronica and Maura, a little girl Stacey used to baby-sit for until Maura was murdered. Stacey, along with help from her friends Amber, Drea, PJ, and Chad, needs to figure out what these nightmares mean before someone else turns up dead, maybe even Stacey. While trying to figure out what her dreams are telling her, Stacey meats Jacob who tells her he is also a witch and he's been having nightmares about her. He transferred to this school to try and prevent Stacey from being murdered. Should Stacey believe him or is Jacob just another ghost and cult groupie not to be trusted?

The second book in this series isn't much different than the first book. Stacey has nightmares about dead girls. She figures out what the dreams mean. She scares her friends with the details of the dreams. Only this time, instead of wetting the bed when she has dreams, she wakes up vomiting. The climax of the book arises when Stacey once again has to go to the academic building where Veronica was killed. Hmmm, this is also like the first book. Why is Stacey going back to the building, to save Drea once again. The conclusion to the book is different from what happened the last time, but for a while during the climax of the book I was left wondering if the person planning to kill Stacey is the same person who tried to kidnap Drea and murdered Veronica in the first book. There is a possibility it's the same guy. I was really hoping that wouldn't be the end result or this book was pretty much the same story as the first book. I won't ruin the ending and tell you who is plotting in the academic building, but White is for Magic didn't really offer me a new plot from Blue is for Nightmares. Sure a new character is introduced and Stacey has a new boyfriend, but did this story really need to be told? There are two more books in the series, is White really necessary to complete the series or would it have been just fine as a three book series?

I plan to read the third book, Silver is for Secrets so maybe then I'll find out if reading White is for Magic really changes the whole series. However, if Silver disappoitns, or seems to be another retelling, I can't say I'll bother with the fourth book, Red is for Remembrance.

After stating some not so good things about this book, I will say some positive things. Stolarz's writing makes me want to keep reading until the end of the book. I wasn't left with a feeling of, "Oh my gosh, I can't put this book down until I find out what happens next", but it has a nice flow to it and I enjoy reading her writing. I hope that the next two books are more eventful since I really do like Stolarz's writing style. Her books are also fast reads. The text flows together and read smoothly in a way that doesn't take long to read, which is always nice when you don't have a lot of time to read.

Interested in reading this book? Don't forget to pick up Blue is for Nightmares first. Many events in this book refer to the previous book so be sure to read that one first.