Book Review: Look Before You Leprechaun

Book review for Look Before You Leprechaun, by Jacqueline Mathias.

Full of magical realism, this is a whimsical young adult story about a human teenager saddled with the title of "leprechaun" and his attempts to get rid of it. 

Visit the author's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacquelinewritesbooks/ 

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Christian Readers Podcast, where you can escape into fiction without sacrificing your values. I'm your host, Colleen Mitchell, author of The Chronicles of Talam. Today I'm reviewing a delightful young adult magical realism book called Look Before You Leprechaun by Jacqueline Mathias. This review is coming out today because I didn't read Two in the Bush as fast as I'd hoped. I'd actually read Look Before You Leprechaun a few weeks ago, but it was totally unrelated to St. Patrick's Day. Here is the book description. A leprechaun trillionaire, a psychic pickpocket, and a brown-eyed beauty who is selfless to a fault. What could go wrong? Stuck with the title of Leprechaun, even though he's every inch a human, teenage trillionaire Robin Riley longs for a life outside the boundaries of his secluded estate, but the strictly enforced leprechaun rules forbid him from leaving. It's only when he receives a letter from the Leprechaun King, informing him that he is betrothed to the king's short, pudgy, red-faced daughter, Pandora, that he decides he needs to do something about his hilariously unfortunate situation, and fast. Setting out to escape his arranged marriage and possibly open up a whole new life for himself as well, Robin decides to venture into the outside world and hide away from the leprechaun militia in the place that they least suspect. So even though I did read the blurb before reading the book, I somehow missed the part where there are actual leprechauns. So when an actual leprechaun showed up on the page, I did a bit of a double take. It was really fun though, and while I don't know much about leprechaun lore, I thought Matthias did a really good job of world building without overdoing it. For those of you wondering about the fantasy discernment questions, the source of the psychic power is never defined, and the character uses that power for his own gain for most of the book. However, part of his arc is learning to use that power for good rather than gain at the expense of others. That arc in particular was really well done, even though I wanted to shake that character by the shoulders for most of the book. Aside from that one character with the psychic powers and then the leprechauns, there weren't any other overt depictions of magic. Additionally, Robin, the main character, is pretty naive for a good chunk of the book, but he has a good heart even though he's making mistakes. He has a really sweet connection with his horse Sabbath, and Robin's love of horses was a constant theme. I also really liked that. The book does touch on the gritty parts of life, including abandonment, poverty, crime, alcoholism, abuse, death, and class divides. So even though plenty of the story is whimsical and fun, be prepared for some harder topics that don't necessarily come through in the blurb. You can find Look Before You Leprechaun on Amazon, or read the first five chapters through Jacqueline's link on Instagram, which you can find in the episode description. If you're a Christian with a book recommendation, there is a link in the description to text me, and I would love to hear it. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If this resonated with you, please share it with your friends so they can find something new to read. God bless, and until next time, goodbye.