Anna Van Housen has an interesting life dealing with her egomaniac mother. Obsessed with a life in the spotlight, Anna has stolen, lied, and cheated many people out of their money in her mother's name. She's broken her mother out of jail more than once, moved towns more than once. She wishes she could tell her mother off, how she's miserable lying to others, how she wants to do real magic--in fact, she wishes she could tell her mother anything. Especially that her magical abilities are real. 
 New York in the 1920s is a rough time for a mother-daughter duo. Harry Houdini is skeptical of anyone who claims they can do real magic, especially speak to the dead. Anna's mother happens to be one of those people. Holding seances in their apartment, Anna uses her abilities to manipulate the evenings to get as much money as possible. Through these seances, Anna meets a young lady named Cynthia who has a small part in the overall plot. She tells Anna of a society that may include people like herself--people with unknown abilities. 
 Meanwhile, a boy has moved into the downstairs neighbor's apartment. Coincidentally, he seems to have connections to this secret society, and he insists that it's not as amazing as it sounds. But can he really be trusted? 
 My biggest problem with this book is (surprise!) it's YA. I felt like Brown really had to dial back her vision. So many parts of the book, so many characters, jump out in one paragraph and then the next they're a dull light. I felt Born of Illusion would have benefited outside of the YA genre. So much more could have been done with it. It seemed close to being a really, really great book and then it remembered it's YA and dumbed down. Surroundings are never really taken in. Anna doesn't observe the atmosphere or set the mood. 
 Anna fell a little flat for me as a heroine. On one hand, the mature voice of a teenage girl made sense for once because Anna had raised herself and her mother. She was the only mature one in the family; if she didn't take care of herself, no one would. But on the other, she seems to forget her maturity in certain situations. There are times when she blanks and forgets her street smarts. She mulls over every tiny little detail and I wanted to scream at her to let it go, to just say something, to stop asking a million questions in her head! I get that she's young and doesn't have to be mature all of the time--really, I do--but when she's constantly overthinking every tiny detail and not moving the plot forward, it gets frustrating. 
 The plot was... well, it was there, I can say that. It was predictable. It was kind of boring. Anna struggled with her powers, found someone who could tell her about them or people like her, he clammed up, she found another person, he danced around, she goes back to the first person who promises to tell her and then waits for the last half of the book. No progress is made with her powers. And the ending of the book? Not great. 
 All in all, it was just okay. Again, I think it would have been a MUCH better read if it wasn't YA.