Thanks so much to NetGalley and Random House Children's for access to an eARC in exchange for my honest review!

Listen up, lovers of old school middle grade masterpieces like Harry Potter and PJO--this, like the magical middle grade worlds that came before it, is what every middle grade novel should strive to be. Like a Charm is fun, engaging, full of all sorts of new characters and creatures to fall in love with and learn more about, and is, to me, a perfect story for readers of any age, even if it's written for the middle grade level.

Ramya and her parents live in England, far away from her mother's family in Scotland, as her mother has distanced from her parents and sisters over the years, but one holiday, Ramya gets permission to pass out food at her parents' adults-only party downstairs and ends up sitting with her Grandpa and opening a gift from him and her grandmother. But when a stranger approaches them at the piano and asks them to play her a song, Ramya can tell that something is wrong. Something is off about the woman. And that something *scares* her, even though no one else understands. Something that ends up ruining not only their evening but also their already tenuous relationship with the rest of Ramya's mother's family.

Years later, Ramya and her parents move back to her mother's old home of Edinburgh, Scotland, and despite the new closeness to the rest of her family and even the fact that she is attending the same school as her cousin, her little piece of the family is more isolated from their roots than ever before. Ramya has been diagnosed with dyspraxia--a disorder which affects her motor skills--and is thusly included in special needs meetings in school where they're meant to work with her on her handwriting and other skills affected by her condition, though she is always made to feel less than in one way or another by the school system despite knowing that nothing it wrong with her (something I *adored* about her from the beginning). Every day is a study in monotony as Ramya struggles to control her anger with the system and the world for looking at her as different or wrong.

Until the unimaginable happens and shakes the whole family to its core, dropping a stranger into Ramya's life with the express purpose of pulling her further into the fold of her family to learn all about a whole new side of the world she's never heard of before--a world of witches, fae, kelpies, sirens, and all manner of other exciting, fascinating, sometimes terrifying creatures. And because she can see them through the glamour they show the world, it's suddenly Ramya's job to learn about them and to record everything she learns. And along the way, she gets to learn more about her family, her new home, and herself while also coming to terms both with what is special about her and with the fact that the world will never appreciate or accommodate her the way it should.

The *instant* that I saw Elle McNicoll describe Ramya as a neurodivergent witch and then go on to talk about Ramya's anger and the fact that she doesn't believe that neurodivergent girls owe the world a mask, I knew I was going to be in love with this story for that representation alone. With representation of both dyspraxia and autism in important characters in the story and a strong focus on the treatment of each of them by the world at large and more specifically by the school system, this book gives us something so, so important. For anyone who doesn't understand the neurodivergent experience, it is written in a way that is easy to follow and understand, and for those of us who are neurodivergent, this book is even more than a simple lesson. It's a chance to see a hero who refuses to give up or to be told she can't do anything, it is a scream into the void that you are not alone, it is a love letter to the different, beautiful ways that our brains work, and it is a reminder that we, like Ramya, owe the world nothing--especially not a mask or our conformity.

As soon as I finished my eARC, I went out and bought two copies of both Like a Charm and the sequel, Like a Curse--one copy of each for myself, and one of each to give as a Christmas gift to my niece and nephews, because I think they deserve the chance to fall in love with Ramya and her world the way I did, especially at their ages. This was such an easy five star read for me, and I hope every fantasy lover in the world gets the chance to read it. I can't wait to devour the sequel.

Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, and Grief Moderate: Death and Violence