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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
Any kid reading this book will want to move to that magical place, meet the characters and enter that school.
I loved following Ivy in her adventures, meeting the characters, discovering magic. It felt so nice entering a new magical world and it reads very easily and I really enjoyed the main character being a strong, adventurous young girl ready to take action and think for herself, we definitely need more of these strong female figures for young readers. The only thing I would say is that I persuaded myself that the characters were younger (10ish) that they truly are (16) but that didn't stop me from enjoying the ride and wondering what magic would escape from the following pages.
If like me you appreciate a story with a strong world building that book won't disappoint. The places, the magic system, the books, the potions, send me straight into the story and I was ready to wander the library, visit the tomes, prepare some potions, try my luck with the glanageries.
Definitely will read the rest of the adventures so thank you very much D.E. Night, the publisher Stories Untold and Netgalley for the chance to read this book for free.
I loved following Ivy in her adventures, meeting the characters, discovering magic. It felt so nice entering a new magical world and it reads very easily and I really enjoyed the main character being a strong, adventurous young girl ready to take action and think for herself, we definitely need more of these strong female figures for young readers. The only thing I would say is that I persuaded myself that the characters were younger (10ish) that they truly are (16) but that didn't stop me from enjoying the ride and wondering what magic would escape from the following pages.
If like me you appreciate a story with a strong world building that book won't disappoint. The places, the magic system, the books, the potions, send me straight into the story and I was ready to wander the library, visit the tomes, prepare some potions, try my luck with the glanageries.
Definitely will read the rest of the adventures so thank you very much D.E. Night, the publisher Stories Untold and Netgalley for the chance to read this book for free.
Review:
To start - I am in my mid-30's and tried my best to read this book through the lens of the target audience, which is middle-grade readers. The writing and general storyline were whimsical and charming. The author's descriptions created good imagery, and I could really see the characters' personalities and the scenes in vivid detail. D.E. Night has a vibrant imagination.
As for the storyline, I had a somewhat difficult time understanding the main point of the plot, but it was an enjoyable sequence of mini-adventures. As an adult reader, I generally prefer books with a more cohesive storyline and overarching theme. This book is best for readers under 14 years who have a faster-moving attention span and need frequently changing scenes and excitement. Overall, I believe this book would make a cute movie.
The main character is 16 years old, but acts much younger (around 12-13). The story would have been a little more believable if she was younger, as the way she behaved, her mannerisms, the way she spoke, and the general themes of the book seem more appropriate for a younger age. The book contained a lot of larger and more complex vocabulary than you would typically find in a middle-grade book (ethereal, pallid, ephemeral. rakishly, prodigious). For parents who are reading this book along with their children, this makes the book more interesting and gives it depth.
Synopsis:
The main character, Ivy, is brave and curious, with a good heart and sense of adventure. Ivy is a 16 year old working for Helga, a cruel woman who holds her essentially captive to do chores and work as a scaldron maid (essentially a grunt worker that cooks and takes care of magical creatures similar to dragons). The story is filled with the magical adventures of Ivy as she navigates her first year at a magical school for royals and scrivenists. Similar to Harry Potter, Ivy is snatched up when she turned 16 and brought to the magical school to learn about her abilities. During her first year, Ivy completes various "missions" during which she tries to uncover a magical secret.
To start - I am in my mid-30's and tried my best to read this book through the lens of the target audience, which is middle-grade readers. The writing and general storyline were whimsical and charming. The author's descriptions created good imagery, and I could really see the characters' personalities and the scenes in vivid detail. D.E. Night has a vibrant imagination.
As for the storyline, I had a somewhat difficult time understanding the main point of the plot, but it was an enjoyable sequence of mini-adventures. As an adult reader, I generally prefer books with a more cohesive storyline and overarching theme. This book is best for readers under 14 years who have a faster-moving attention span and need frequently changing scenes and excitement. Overall, I believe this book would make a cute movie.
The main character is 16 years old, but acts much younger (around 12-13). The story would have been a little more believable if she was younger, as the way she behaved, her mannerisms, the way she spoke, and the general themes of the book seem more appropriate for a younger age. The book contained a lot of larger and more complex vocabulary than you would typically find in a middle-grade book (ethereal, pallid, ephemeral. rakishly, prodigious). For parents who are reading this book along with their children, this makes the book more interesting and gives it depth.
Synopsis:
The main character, Ivy, is brave and curious, with a good heart and sense of adventure. Ivy is a 16 year old working for Helga, a cruel woman who holds her essentially captive to do chores and work as a scaldron maid (essentially a grunt worker that cooks and takes care of magical creatures similar to dragons). The story is filled with the magical adventures of Ivy as she navigates her first year at a magical school for royals and scrivenists. Similar to Harry Potter, Ivy is snatched up when she turned 16 and brought to the magical school to learn about her abilities. During her first year, Ivy completes various "missions" during which she tries to uncover a magical secret.
3.5 stars! This book is very cute and is the start to a magical journey as it is the first in a series. The story is about an insignificant girl who starts to discover her dark past and realizes there is more to her than she could ever imagine. I enjoyed a lot of the characters in this book, especially Fyn. This is a great book for young readers or if you are looking for an innocent magical adventure. Enjoy!
I was hooked from the prologue. The story closes on very a cliffhanger as it’s near even though the story is fair starting where it wraps up off. I think the creator unquestionably did this purposely to keep you snared sufficient to study another book This is certainly a page-turning daydream perused full of fairytales, enchantment and an unconventional world. It truly reminded me of Harry Potter since of the enchanted boarding school and the classes but it’s still exceptionally much its claim world with its claim peculiarities. What’s not to like? I can see the appeal it will have for a middle school reading group, but I felt that the main character was written a little younger for his age in places. I also felt that the story was rushed in places and could have been a bit longer to give more description and explanation and to give the story room to breathe. Still, it was a fun and interesting first book in what I'm sure is a delightful series.
I received an e-arc of this book through Netgalley in exchange of an honest review and I loved it! This book was really similar to a lot of my favorite things. The magic throughout the book was similar to the magic in Harry Potter but it had its own little twist, and the ball reminds you a little of Cinderella. When we first meet Ivy she is slaving away in a kitchen and works for a royal family. One of the dragons that cooks the food gets sick and the head cook is not too happy about it so she bans Ivy from ever coming back. Ivy ends up taking the little dragon with her and he becomes like a pet to her. A strange and magical carriage arrives and takes Ivy away to a school for royals (who can do magic) and scrivenists (who write down anything of note and have some magic abilities). I think anyone who loves a little adventure will love this book and everything about it. I can't wait to read the next one to see where Ivy goes!
4/5 stars ⭐️
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Disclaimer: This book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for a honest review.
A debut novel by D.E. Night comes the first story of 16-year old Ivy Lovely. Hidden away as a scaldrony maid in a mundane castle surrounded by slurry fields where she spends her time sketching and meeting with her dwarf friend, Rimbrick and dreams of life outside the castle. But when Ivy is fired from her job due to a mishap with a sick scaldron (easily described as small dragons), she is kicked out of the castle with the aforementioned scaldron and quickly finds herself crossing an enchanted boundary and awakens her sleeping powers. Ivy eventually ends up at the Halls of Ivy, a magic school with a unique magic system between royals and laymen who are known as scribes. When Ivy’s life is threatened by the Dark Queen, she uncovers her own history and must save Croswald before all is lost.
Night gives us a unique magic system and an adventurous middle-grade fantasy that can easily be compared to Harry Potter. While there are a lot of aspects of this story that are undeniably similar, this story stands on its own and became a fun and easy read.
That being said, a LOT is covered in this book and I can only assume because of this, we do not get to learn more about our characters or even the day-to-day activities of being a student at the Halls of Ivy and I still have a lot of questions. But! I can relish in the fact that there will be more books to come and you can bet I will be reading them all!
Ivy is a great MC to follow along side this story, her friend Rebecca is totally the BFF you want on your side, and Fyn is the adorable sidekick/love interest. I can only hope that we can get more Humboldt (her pet scaldron) in future books.
I normally wouldn’t talk about formatting, but the actual physical book is gorgeous! The cover and back cover have such beautiful art, the chapter titles have the cutest bits of art, even the font is adorable! Seriously! I love the font of this book! I’m so happy it can join my shelf collection.
In short, I am recommending this for any middle-grade reader fans. I can easily see this being the start of a fun and sweet series to help keep me young! 😆
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review can be found on RoamingReader.net
**********
Disclaimer: This book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for a honest review.
A debut novel by D.E. Night comes the first story of 16-year old Ivy Lovely. Hidden away as a scaldrony maid in a mundane castle surrounded by slurry fields where she spends her time sketching and meeting with her dwarf friend, Rimbrick and dreams of life outside the castle. But when Ivy is fired from her job due to a mishap with a sick scaldron (easily described as small dragons), she is kicked out of the castle with the aforementioned scaldron and quickly finds herself crossing an enchanted boundary and awakens her sleeping powers. Ivy eventually ends up at the Halls of Ivy, a magic school with a unique magic system between royals and laymen who are known as scribes. When Ivy’s life is threatened by the Dark Queen, she uncovers her own history and must save Croswald before all is lost.
Night gives us a unique magic system and an adventurous middle-grade fantasy that can easily be compared to Harry Potter. While there are a lot of aspects of this story that are undeniably similar, this story stands on its own and became a fun and easy read.
That being said, a LOT is covered in this book and I can only assume because of this, we do not get to learn more about our characters or even the day-to-day activities of being a student at the Halls of Ivy and I still have a lot of questions. But! I can relish in the fact that there will be more books to come and you can bet I will be reading them all!
Ivy is a great MC to follow along side this story, her friend Rebecca is totally the BFF you want on your side, and Fyn is the adorable sidekick/love interest. I can only hope that we can get more Humboldt (her pet scaldron) in future books.
I normally wouldn’t talk about formatting, but the actual physical book is gorgeous! The cover and back cover have such beautiful art, the chapter titles have the cutest bits of art, even the font is adorable! Seriously! I love the font of this book! I’m so happy it can join my shelf collection.
In short, I am recommending this for any middle-grade reader fans. I can easily see this being the start of a fun and sweet series to help keep me young! 😆
**********
review can be found on RoamingReader.net
*Preface I received an ARC from the Publisher and this is my unbiased opinion.
*Spoilers-
I found the story and its concept very interesting, I always love magical academia, growing up - I read a lot of books like this and was excited to try this. The lore was very interesting and a bit overwhelming at times but as is the genre. The descriptions for the school and magical items were impeccable. Ivy, as the mc, was very likable and I enjoyed her progress though the story. The other students, like Rebecca were enjoyable as well. And the tropes of school academia , like the mean girl and cliques was great to see in this setting.
But I did have some issues- I didn’t really see the passage of time, at a certain point, it had been months and I didn’t even realize that. Or that the end of the book was coming to the end of the school year. And the last few chapters, particularly the masquerade scene (I did very much enjoy the aesthetic and the gowns. I am always a sucker for school balls) was confusing. The Dark Queen appearing all of a sudden and her motive for attacking Ivy was …confusing.
But other than that- I enjoyed the story and the overall vibes of it.
*Spoilers-
I found the story and its concept very interesting, I always love magical academia, growing up - I read a lot of books like this and was excited to try this. The lore was very interesting and a bit overwhelming at times but as is the genre. The descriptions for the school and magical items were impeccable. Ivy, as the mc, was very likable and I enjoyed her progress though the story. The other students, like Rebecca were enjoyable as well. And the tropes of school academia , like the mean girl and cliques was great to see in this setting.
But I did have some issues- I didn’t really see the passage of time, at a certain point, it had been months and I didn’t even realize that. Or that the end of the book was coming to the end of the school year. And the last few chapters, particularly the masquerade scene (I did very much enjoy the aesthetic and the gowns. I am always a sucker for school balls) was confusing. The Dark Queen appearing all of a sudden and her motive for attacking Ivy was …confusing.
But other than that- I enjoyed the story and the overall vibes of it.
I received this book from the publisher Stories Untold for free in exchange for an honest review.
I will start by saying this book is definitely filled with magic and the world/concept is pretty neat.
However I personally had a lot of problems with it. Mainly with pacing. It felt like nothing was happening even though things were happening. Most of the time it felt like I was just supposed to be confused even though through the whole book it was very obvious who Ivy was and who the man from her dreams was. I also did not like being told this book was like Harry Potter because that set my bar of expectation a little too high. It’s magical and it wants to be Harry Potter (the format is basically the same) but it just isn’t and shouldn’t be trying.
This book just wasn’t for me. I would recommend it to young kids in middle school who like fantasy though.
I will start by saying this book is definitely filled with magic and the world/concept is pretty neat.
However I personally had a lot of problems with it. Mainly with pacing. It felt like nothing was happening even though things were happening. Most of the time it felt like I was just supposed to be confused even though through the whole book it was very obvious who Ivy was and who the man from her dreams was. I also did not like being told this book was like Harry Potter because that set my bar of expectation a little too high. It’s magical and it wants to be Harry Potter (the format is basically the same) but it just isn’t and shouldn’t be trying.
This book just wasn’t for me. I would recommend it to young kids in middle school who like fantasy though.
3.5*
I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
This was a very fun and magical story! We get to follow young Ivy, an orphaned girl who grew up as a maid in a world full of magic. When Ivy one day leaves the castle she has worked in her whole life, something awakens inside of her and she’s swept away to a magical boarding school full of Royals and will-be-scrivenists.
Learning to use her magic as a scrivenist, Ivy attends classes in halls she has visited in her dreams and quickly notices that something is going on in her world - something, or someone, everyone but her seems to have forgotten.
I went into this book expecting it to resemble Harry Potter, with the whole magical-boarding-school thing. I was disappointed by how much it resembled it. We have Ivy, a magical orphan, living in horrendous conditions, sleeping in a cupboard. She made friends with a girl who easily can be compared to Ronald, and her nemesis at school is a privileged, rich, girl who bullies Ivy for not being as fancy as her (draco malfoy, anyone?).
It wasn’t until the second part of the story that I actually got really engaged and it veered very far from being a copy of HP. I went from fearing that I would take weeks to finish the book, to not being able to put it down.
I am very pleasantly surprised with this book and the way this story is going. The plot in the second half of the book was amazing and I found myself in love with the places the characters visited. How the magic in the world worked was so interesting, and the creatures that filled the book were lovely.
And, I just have to mention, the illustrations in the beginning of the chapters??? I loved them so, so much!
This book is perfect for fans of magical boarding schools, royals and magical places. I can see both middle graders and adults enjoying this story, so I highly suggest you pick it up if it sounds interesting!
I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
This was a very fun and magical story! We get to follow young Ivy, an orphaned girl who grew up as a maid in a world full of magic. When Ivy one day leaves the castle she has worked in her whole life, something awakens inside of her and she’s swept away to a magical boarding school full of Royals and will-be-scrivenists.
Learning to use her magic as a scrivenist, Ivy attends classes in halls she has visited in her dreams and quickly notices that something is going on in her world - something, or someone, everyone but her seems to have forgotten.
I went into this book expecting it to resemble Harry Potter, with the whole magical-boarding-school thing. I was disappointed by how much it resembled it. We have Ivy, a magical orphan, living in horrendous conditions, sleeping in a cupboard. She made friends with a girl who easily can be compared to Ronald, and her nemesis at school is a privileged, rich, girl who bullies Ivy for not being as fancy as her (draco malfoy, anyone?).
It wasn’t until the second part of the story that I actually got really engaged and it veered very far from being a copy of HP. I went from fearing that I would take weeks to finish the book, to not being able to put it down.
I am very pleasantly surprised with this book and the way this story is going. The plot in the second half of the book was amazing and I found myself in love with the places the characters visited. How the magic in the world worked was so interesting, and the creatures that filled the book were lovely.
And, I just have to mention, the illustrations in the beginning of the chapters??? I loved them so, so much!
This book is perfect for fans of magical boarding schools, royals and magical places. I can see both middle graders and adults enjoying this story, so I highly suggest you pick it up if it sounds interesting!
After a good few months of reading Croswald I finally finished. I got this book from the author and wanted to say thanks!
It did take me a while to get into this book but once the plot really started to get going it was a really amazing read.
There were a lot of moments in the book where I could foretell what was going to happen and there were other moments where Ivy specifically never went back to what she was doing before she was interrupted (or otherwise), it was like the author also forgot what was happening. I really wish she had developed Ivy's relationship with her peers more, it was like she was constantly looking from the outside, like her relationship was being told not shown, specifically with Damaris and Fyn, it was like Ivy just suddenly made up her mind on what she thought of them. I know I would have loved to see her feelings for Fyn festering rather than just suddenly deciding how she felt about him, it came up out of nowhere.
I really enjoyed this book and it was kind of like the sibling of Harry Potter, there were so many similarities and you could see The Crowns of Croswald had stemmed from Harry Potter whilst it was still harbouring it's own plot line.
I still really enjoyed this book and I still love books where everything revolves around the protagonist (thats kind of what a protagonist is) as the 'chosen one'.
It did take me a while to get into this book but once the plot really started to get going it was a really amazing read.
There were a lot of moments in the book where I could foretell what was going to happen and there were other moments where Ivy specifically never went back to what she was doing before she was interrupted (or otherwise), it was like the author also forgot what was happening. I really wish she had developed Ivy's relationship with her peers more, it was like she was constantly looking from the outside, like her relationship was being told not shown, specifically with Damaris and Fyn, it was like Ivy just suddenly made up her mind on what she thought of them. I know I would have loved to see her feelings for Fyn festering rather than just suddenly deciding how she felt about him, it came up out of nowhere.
I really enjoyed this book and it was kind of like the sibling of Harry Potter, there were so many similarities and you could see The Crowns of Croswald had stemmed from Harry Potter whilst it was still harbouring it's own plot line.
I still really enjoyed this book and I still love books where everything revolves around the protagonist (thats kind of what a protagonist is) as the 'chosen one'.