Every once in a while, I choose a book by it’s cover. ^_^ In the case of A Magical Girl Retires, by Park Seolyeon the title and synopsis piqued my interest, but it was the cover, by Kim Sanho, who also did the cover art for the entertaining An Error Occurred, which I reviewed this past summer. The art style is very appealing and I love the palette, so as soon as I knew I was taking a vacation, I grabbed this book, which had been translated into English by Anton Hur, to read.

It was short, bitter, dark and really pretty damn good.

Our protagonist has hit a dead end in her life. In debt, with no job, not opportunities and no support system, she’s let her small dream disappear into the tide of society when she is approached by a “guardian angel,” Ah Roa who tells her that she is a magical girl. At 29 years old this sounds less great than it does at 14. But she has no other options and is unable to end things, so she reluctantly becomes a magical girl. The job does have some benefits – there’s is a union, but the unnamed protag cannot access her powers, even though she is assured that she is a magical girl. And magical girls are needed to fight climate change.  And an even greater threat that comes from within their own ranks.

This is a fabulous story about being exhausted and facing consequences of one’s actions. It has a realistic approach to the idea of “what would magical girls be like in our reality?” Although the narrative is rooted deeply in the worst ways in which women are denied opportunities to thrive, it finds a very non-magical way through that back to a reality that has hope it in once more. And yes, there is Yuri, which is both important to the story and also shoehorned in in a way that it didn’t need to be, so I was very glad for it. The translation of this story was easy to read. The whole thing zipped along and I finished it up before I realized.

This novella was, well, not fun, but very entertaining and I would read another book by the same author.

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