The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic

Content Warning: This section of the guide refers to terminal illness, mental illness, and attempted suicide.

Sadie Revelare is the protagonist of the novel. Gigi’s granddaughter and Seth’s twin sister, Sadie has magic related to gardening and cooking. She has an ability to infuse food with certain supernatural effects, and to make almost anything grow. Sadie cannot separate magic from her identity, and she focuses on helping people as a substitute for forming real, deep connections with them. Like the other Revelares, Sadie has a curse along with her magic, and hers is to experience four increasingly severe heartbreaks, any one of which may cause the loss of her magic.

Sadie thrives on routine, a trait she has in common with the small town of Poppy Meadows where she lives: “the tiny town [. . .] much like Sadie herself, ran like clockwork” (5). She compartmentalizes her thoughts to repress her past heartbreaks and keep her anxiety at bay. Sadie is 28 and has never left the area around Poppy Meadows. She loves the town and sees no reason to leave. Sadie has difficulty letting go of the past and wishes that she could move forward, but “memories lived forever in Sadie.