ARC Review // Chai Jinxed by Emi Pinto

All it took was one majestic frog and a love brew gone wrong—and faster than you can say ribbit, Misha got expelled...again. Things aren’t much better back home. A rival tea shop opens across the street, and rumors spread that the Dayaans' tea is cursed. Determined to fix her family’s reputation, Misha’s only got one option left: attend the infamous Margaret’s Academy of Tea and Brewing and brew her way to the top of her class—even if it means a little bit of spice sabotage.

But when Misha finds herself up against the girl from the tea shop across the street and things start going wrong—ghostly tea leaves, living scarecrows, and rumors of missing tea witches—Misha starts to realize the truth: she’s jinxed. And if she can’t turn her luck around, her family tea shop, her classmates—and even all of Margaret’s Academy—will have a fate worse than cold tea.

Emi Pinto's heartfelt, hilarious, and hijinks-filled Chai Jinxed is a stand-alone adventure for everyone who has ever felt the pressure to succeed, with an affirming story about friendship, family, and self-love.
A uniquely witchy story, Chai Jinxed follows Misha, a tea brewing witch who can't make a brew to save her life. After the catastrophic disaster of her last brew landed her another expulsion she knows she needs to make one last ditch effort to prove herself. She finesses her way into Margaret's Academy of Tea and Brewing with the help of a new friend and finds herself at the center of a mystery that will change her life forever.

Chai Jinxed reminded me of The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents since both main characters can't handle their magic and are considered misfits. Although in Chai Jinxed, Misha is willing to make mistakes and constantly yells out, "I can fix this!" when reader, she can not indeed fix this. There's a lot of humor in her mistakes as well as a great lesson for young readers to keep trying. I was very interested in the different friendships she made from the rival who sabotaged her tea shop, to the mysterious girl who helped her get a gold apron, and lastly to the boy who thinks only gold aprons are worth associating with. I would have loved more time with them. I feel like there was so much more that they could have contributed to the story. For example, the ending would have made more sense if the potential relationship was at least hinted upon throughout the story. I also wish the story was more drawn out and we got to see more tea brewing lessons. I did really enjoy the lessons that can be learned through reading this story and not knowing what was going to happen next. Chai Jinxed is a lovely magical story about chasing your dreams and being yourself, it just needed a little polishing.  

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of Chai Jinxed in exchange for an honest review.

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