"Eleven-year-old Ella Durand is the first Conjuror to attend the Arcanum Training Institute, a magic school in the clouds where Marvellers from around the world practice their cultural arts, like brewing Indian spice elixirs and bartering with pesky Irish pixies.Despite her excitement, Ella discovers that being the first isn't easy - some Marvellers mistrust her magic, which they deem "bad" and "unnatural." But eventually, she finds friends in the elixirs teacher, Masterji Thakur, and fellow misfits Brigit, a girl who hates magic, and Jason, a boy with a fondness for magical creatures.When a dangerous criminal known as the Ace of Anarchy escapes prison, supposedly with a Conjuror's aid, tensions grow in the Marvellian world and Ella becomes the target of suspicion. Worse, Masterji Thakur mysteriously disappears while away on a research trip. With the help of her friends and her own growing powers, Ella must find a way to clear her family's name and track down her mentor before it's too late."
What's this? A REVIEW?! That's right...it's summer break, and I'm going to do my best to get on a blogging schedule and maybe even keep it going when school starts back up. We'll see how that goes. But let's get started by diving right in to the initial draw of this book. First of all, it's Dhonielle Clayton. I mean. Come on. I would read a draft of her grocery list. Also, a new take on magic schools that incorporates like...actual history and real-life events? Yes, thank you, I will devour this. And finally I'm sorry, that cover? Is truly a work of art.
Soooo yeah, safe to say I was eager to get my hot little hands on this, and I was over the moon when it was the book in one of my monthly subscription boxes. Such a delightful surprise.
Now, I'm going to include a disclaimer before we get into why I only gave four stars for character development, and that is that this is a roughly 400 page book, and it has a lot of characters. Like...A LOT, a lot. Trying to build out an entire world, introduce a ton of characters, and develop a compelling plot in a relatively short fantasy book...not every character is going to be fully fleshed out. It's just the way it goes sometimes.
I think there was a valiant effort to introduce all the relevant students, every teacher and headmaster, and give them all a reasonable amount of time on the page, but some of the tertiary characters fell a bit flat for me as a result of splitting attention that much. For the most part, that's fine, but without spoiling anything, there was a Big Reveal at one point late in the story that, with a lack of developed...relationship, I guess?...to these more background characters, it didn't pack quite the punch that it should have. Which was a shame, because it was otherwise a very powerful moment. Also, frankly, I'm just a greedy bitch and wanted more Masterji Thakur and Professor Kwame Mbalia. I mean, you name a character after KWAME FREAKING MBALIA and then you only give me a couple little tastes? I would read a whole book just about his character. I want to take his class. I need more!
All that said, the main characters were top damn notch, and I loved them all. Ella is so nerdy and earnest and wonderful, not to mention the kindest soul. Brigit is so loveably grumpy and angry (and she KNITS HELLO YES), and Jason might go on the list of my top characters ever created, he and his wiggly dreads wiggled their way right into my heart. And Ella's whole family gave me heart eyes. I don't eat meat, but I wanted to be at their family dinners over the holidays. Just...wonderful, all around.
And finally! Overall plot and writing style. I was a fan. I liked the way the book was structured, with a chapter followed by letters back and forth, a glimpse into something else that was happening, or some other little moment...it was a great way to further different parts of the story but still fold it all in together. And I feel like there were breadcrumbs dropped at juuuuust the right times...every time I thought to myself, "ok, this seems like a good chapter to stop reading after," I would get to a little vignette that made it impossible to close the book. There were even a couple times where I went "WHAT?!" out loud. Yessssss, the suspense! Even now, it's killing me. I need the next book.
Anyhoo, buy this book. Read this book. Share this book. Sleep with this book under your pillow, if that's comfortable for you. Write fanfiction about it. It's wonderful, is what I'm getting at. In case you couldn't tell how I felt about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment