Spells for Forgetting is a work of low fantasy and has several elements in common with the magical realism genre. In literary terms, low fantasy refers to any story with magical elements that is set in the ordinary world we know (rather than a secondary fictional world, like J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth). Magical realism takes this a step further and presents those magical elements as an accepted, integrated part of the everyday. In other words, magic is “normal” for the people who populate the story. Spells for Forgetting presents spell craft and magic as an ordinary part of the main characters’ upbringing, yet it remains unconventional and supernatural to those outside the community. This means that although Spells for Forgetting has been marketed as a magical realism novel and has elements in common with the genre, it isn’t quite magical realism in the most traditional sense of the term.

Spells for Forgetting was Adrienne’s Young’s adult debut, following a series of young adult novels and preceding The Unmaking of June Farrow. Young’s YA novels are more overtly fantastical and take place in a secondary world, while her adult novels are more rooted in reality.