Vacui Magia: Stories by L. S. Johnson is a well-written book composed of eight short stories in total that are guaranteed to send shivers down your spine with its eerie storytelling. Each story is composed amazingly with the world changed from what we know it as which enthrall the reader completely. This book is especially good for the people who enjoy fairy tales or magic with a twist. The story lingers in your mind after reading it forcing you to dig deeper into the plot. Not only do the stories stick to you after reading them but teach great lessons.

Each story was very thought-provoking and beautifully told making me fall in love with it even more. However, in certain places of the stories the plot line ended up being very confusing. The writing style that changed with each story did not help the confusion. This meant the reader had to take a minute and reevaluate how they are reading the book after almost every story. I feel that because of this I may have interpreted some parts of the story wrong because of it.

 The author was not afraid to play with a little blood and death making it extremely gory. This made it into a very interesting to read as not many authors do not write like this. During each story, the protagonist always female or genderless was something else I stumbled upon. Whether this means something I don’t know.

Overall, the detail, original ideas, and mythology references inside the book make up for the confusion between each chapter. After reading Vacui Magia: Stories, I would give it a total of 4 out of 5 stars. I am choosing this rating because of the confusion in the plot line, other than that the book was magnificent! I would defiantly recommend this book to readers that enjoy heroes burdened with heavy problems that simply want their own taste of freedom from the reality around them.

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