I found Paloma to be quite annoying at the beginning as she was focusing on herself, her needs, and how the changes affected her and her alone. Then I had to remind myself that Paloma is a child facing a giant life change with a new home, new friends, and separation from her extended family.

By the end of this novel, Paloma did a great job of turning her outlook around and embracing the changes. I absolutely loved the last scene, that was perfect and I needed a tissue for all the happy tears. ( )

I loved Totally Psychic by Brigid Martin it was a lovely story.

In this story, the main character, Paloma Ferrer, is from a family of psychics. Her Abuela is famous for it. The story goes through how Paloma navigates through her new psychic abilities, which was very interesting. She ends up causing a lot of trouble throughout the story that she eventually learns from these mistakes.

There are five rules to follow that go along with her new abilities. Number one is that she must not force contact with any spirits because it can open up a portal to negative energy. Number two is that she must never talk to evil spirits because they can stick around and follow you everywhere. Number three, she must never ask how the specific spirit died. Number four, she must never repeat everything the spirit tells her. Some things are best left alone. She breaks this rule and learns the hard way her consequences for her actions. Number five, these readings are supposed to help heal the spirits and their realitive/friends. They aren't meant to damage them. Paloma learns the hard way when she breaks this one as well.

Before she moves her, Abuela gives her a gift to help with her psychic abilities. This gift includes: a mirror, blessed candles, a Book of Flowers, and a notebook. The notebook is meant for writing down any thoughts and visions Paloma has that is related to her abilities. The book of Flowers is information passed down from the ancestors before her about her specific ability. The candles are meant for protection and to close the portals. The special mirror is for her to help communicate with spirits and her family. All these objects play an important role in the story.

All of Paloma's family have special psychic abilities. Paloma is a flower medium, and her younger sister is able to record ghosts on videos through her phone. Their Abuela is a famous psychic while their Abuelito is a chef. Their Father is a chef and mother a florist. Their mom runs a shop out of her van. Their uncle Esteban is a numerologist, aunt Rose, an Astrologist, cousin Geraldo, an object reader, and cousin Dania, a culinary Clairvoyant. Their Aunt Maria is a dream analyst, and Uncle Julian and Uncle Raul are empaths and animal Psychics. All of their abilities play a part in the story and are quite interesting. My favorite would probably be Aunt Rosa's ability of being an Astrologist.

The plot and character development of this book is very well written. My favorite of the spirits has got to be Dustin and Oreo that scene of when he met Oreo was so cute. One character I disliked was Willows grandpa it was not ok/right for him to be so pushy towards Paloma sharing the family secret. Also, in some parts Paloma was in the right while others her mom was. In my opinion Paloma should have listened to her gut and never used the ouija board that led to so much trouble.

I really love the cover of the book it fits the story perfectly. If you love books that contain magic, definitely give this book a try. ( )

children's middlegrade audio fiction (about five hours + 50 minutes), Cuban-American protagonist with supernatural abilities.

Paloma, a middlegrader with a talent for flower divination, moves with her parents and little sister Magdalena from Miami to Rancho Cucamonga CA -- not only does this mean leaving all her friends, but also her beloved Abuela who shares her ability to commune with ghosts.

Brigid Martin is an excellent storyteller and (screen and voice actor) Frankie Corzo's skilled audio narration is easy to listen to and super effective at communicating the characters' emotions. Paloma, anxious about making friends at her new school but adept at connecting with lonely ghosts, is very easy to like and there is plenty of kid-friendly humor. Recommended for fans of Sal and Gabi or anyone who loves funny middlegrade paranormal fiction. ( )

Paloma is part of a family of psychics in Miami where everyone has a gift, such as talking to ghosts, interpreting dreams or finding lost pets. Paloma has just turned twelve and has discovered that she is just like her grandmother, a famous medium who conducts seances and goes on tours.
Paloma's parents have uprooted Paloma and her sister and moved to California, away from their large extended family. Paloma has to go to a new school and make new friends.
She decides to host seances at school and stream them on social media to convince her grandmother to take her on tour with her. She wants to impress her new friends with her psychic abilities, ends up breaking some important rules when it comes to seances and creates supernatural chaos with a collection of out-of-control ghosts.
Totally Psychic is well written, engaging, creative and fun with some important lessons about family, rules, peer pressure and boundaries. Paloma is a very relatable character for middle school students as she works through conflicts with her family and relationships with her old and new friends. Thank you to BookishFirst for a copy to review. ( )

I am definitely an outlier on this one. I was so excited for Totally Psychic and felt it was off to a great start. Paloma is the granddaughter of a very famous celebrity psychic whose life is uprooted overnight when her family moves to LA - away from her grandmother, her friends, and everything she knows. To cope with change, Paloma begins giving readings to her classmates at school and attempts to become famous on her own terms. While the overall idea was cute and age appropriate, the execution was not my cup of tea.

What I Liked:
- The overall idea of the novel
- The cover art. Adorable!!

What I Didn’t Like:
- The writing. It was juvenile at best and embarrassing at worst. I read this one right after a string of Kate Milford and Trenton Lee Stuart novels - also written for the exact same age demographic - and there is a clear indication that just because the content is for young audiences, doesn’t mean the writing has to be dumbed down to the point of oblivion. Totally Psychic was riddled with stunted dialogue, unrealistic or overly-simple explanations, and a plethora of exclamation marks
- Everything (seriously EVERYTHING) that happens in this book is wildly unrealistic
- Many themes of the book. Paloma is obviously coping with a lot in some of the worst possible ways. And everyone seems fine with it. Summon bad spirits? WOOPS! Constantly skip school or sneak out? Great! Get into trouble over and over when it can be easily avoided? You bet. While I understand a lot of Paloma’s choices were very age appropriate, she never really learns any lessons big enough to enact change or second thought. For that reason I would never recommend this book to an actual kid.

Overall, I’m super bummed. It seemed like such a cute book and I was so excited for a hippy dippy middle grade! Oh well.

Thank you to BookishFirst and the publisher for an early copy of this book. ( )