Accidental Demons by Clare Edge
This is a middle grade fantasy following Bernadette, a young witch from a branch of magic that uses small offerings of blood to summon demons to perform tasks for the witch. However, as a recently diagnosed diabetic who has to draw blood several times a day to test her blood sugar, Ber keeps accidentally summoning demons that she is not yet magically equipped to handle. When her sister gets the idea to use a demon to monitor her blood sugar like a free service dog, the demon they summon is unlike any they've ever seen and brings with them questions about the entire blood magic system.
This was a lot fun! Ber and her friends and family are all compelling characters and the multiple magic systems present in the book are cool as well. As for the two main themes of the book, they definitely don't feel resolved- this is the start of a series, so they presumably won't be left incomplete, but it does mean that this book doesn't stand very well on its own.
Ber spends the whole book feeling broken because of how her disability affects her and hating the pity she is leveled with because of it. She grows much more confident throughout the book, especially once she is able to keep constant track of her blood sugar through Fin, but she doesn't quite get to the point of accepting that her life will be different now, but that that's okay. The dedication reads "For all the diabetic kids who were told you can lead a perfectly normal life. I'm sorry. They lied. But your life can still be magic," so I'm sure the series will get there eventually. I also liked the inclusion of the fact that diabetes isn't caused by overeating or sugar and the discussion about the completely obtuse barriers to care created by insurance.
The other major theme, I am a bit more wary about the execution of. The adults in Ber's family believe blood witches to be superior to all other types of magic users, and Ber and her sister spend the book unlearning that idea and coming to terms with how little they know about magic because their entire understanding of it is based around upholding this false idea. Which is obviously a racism metaphor, and I am always guarded about those when they're written by white people. However, I am tentatively optimistic about it because the author isn't shying away from actual racism; all of the other types of magic users we meet in the book are people of color, which I have to assume is intentional and that the real world racism in believing one's culture to be superior will be addressed further in book two. I'm even hopeful that since Ber's family magic is so rooted in their Irish heritage that the second book will address the false equivalence of the oppression of white ethnic minorities to racism like a little baby version of Sinners. Which is probably way too much to hope for, but at least until the second book releases, I can dream.
I will say that it includes one of my least favorite publishing trends of having a fat main character but not making that clear on the cover. But this is far from the most egregious case I've seen, and it's not like the cover is the author's fault anyway. Other than that though, I had a blast with this book, but it does really need the sequel to stick the landing because this one does feel incomplete on its own. 4⭐️
