The Invisibles - Susie Bower - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Susie Bower

GENRE: Middle-grade Fantasy.

PUBLICATION DATE: June 5, 2025.

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy-adventure about friendships, mistakes, and magic. Interesting characters, great plotline, some cool magic. A bit confusing in some segments and some unanswered questions. Overall though, it kept me hooked. Recommended.

Plot Preview:

It’s tough to preview this book without spoiling anything. The GR blurb also reveals too much. So this is just a barebones hint of the storyline and its key elements. (I’ll keep my review equally vague so that I don’t inadvertently leak out key plot points.)

Land of Magics – friends – egos – libraries – danger – exile – Wasteland – amnesia – rebellion – adventure.

The story comes to us in two voices: one in first person from a narrator who has lost her memory and one in third person from the character who initiates the chain of events.

Bookish Yays:

🔮 The very first section of the book, titled “Before”. Outstanding! It established the personality of one of the key characters excellently.

🔮 The characters – none perfect, but each memorable with their strengths and weaknesses. I particularly loved “H”, as beautiful in her deeds and talents as her name. All key characters are children.

🔮 Did I mention that two of the characters are invisible? What fun! (Not for them but for me!)

🔮 The themes – friendship, ego, selfishness, sacrifice, courage. All worthy topics for a MG book and all handled well.

🔮 The fantastical content. Though it is not as much as I would have liked, what’s there in the book is fabulous.

🔮 The magical books and the depiction of the power of reading – subtle but cool. I’d have loved to see more of the books and the library.

🔮 The locations, especially in the Land of Magics. Reminded me of Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree.

🔮 The visual contrast established between the three key places through their atmospheric descriptions.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🛶 After the aforementioned “Before”, the story shifts to the first-person POV of a character who has amnesia. As such, her narration starts off very vague and confusing to follow. The vagueness is justified by her memory issues, but I am unsure of how well this would work for younger middle-graders.

🛶 Though the GR blurb mentions the Land of Magics and the book even begins with it, it is hardly there for most of the plot. Anyone who reads the blurb would expect this land to be the main setting for the story. A bit unfair to us readers that it is not so.

🛶 There’s too much secret-keeping in the middle section. While the characters’ justifications are made clear after a while, it does get annoying to see so many “I can’t tell you” conversations.

🛶 The ending is apt for the story, but I would have liked the story to continue for at least a couple of chapters more to offer better closure on what’s next for the characters.

Bookish Nays:

🚫 A few things stay unexplained till the end. Though the story is complete and there’s no apparent sequel. As such, I wish the background detailing and the ending would have plugged in all the gaps.

🚫 No illustrations. ☹

All in all, despite some doubts that linger on, I had fun reading this book. The start was awesome, the next section begins a bit shakily due to the character’s impaired memory, but once we get used to it, the plot amps up again. After a point, I simply couldn’t keep the book down.

This isn't my first book by this author. I had absolutely loved Shoo! and The Dangerous Life of Ophelia Bottom. While this book didn’t offer me a similar high, the intriguing storyline and the main characters ensured a darkly entertaining ride.

Definitely recommended to fantasy-loving middle-graders who enjoy darkish plots.

My thanks to author Susie Bower and Pushkin Press for providing the DRC of “The Invisibles” via NetGalley at my request. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.