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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
Too much like HP for me but major fans of Potter may love it.
This week I read a fun children's book written by my two very favorite YA writers Holly Black and Cassandra Clare: The Iron Trial. It's the first book in their Magisterium Series that will include five books total. You can visit the fun website over at Scholastic.
Callum "Call" Hunt has been recruited to take entrance exams to a secret underground school for mages, "The Magisterium." The competition is stiff as only a few students are accepted.
Call wants to fail.
Every other student is competing as hard as he or she can to gain acceptance into the school, but Callum's father has warned him his whole life about the dangers at the Magisterium, how the mage instructors or masters use their students in experiments to glean knowledge about magic. Call's mother was killed during a mage war, and to complicate his life even further, he has a disability with a weak leg because he suffered a horrendous injury as a child. But in spite of Call's horrible performance during his admissions testing, he's admitted to the Magisterium and placed with the mage who had instructed his father years ago.
I enjoyed this book in spite of the fact that the school is underground in a series of caves. The plot is fast-paced, something readers have come to expect from Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. I had to pay attention to every word so I wouldn't miss anything important. Call and his teammates Tamara and Aaron eventually bond and work together to face frightening foes in an unexpected climax. The three friends' characters are well-developed, and I can't wait to read their next adventure in The Copper Gauntlet.
Fire wants to burn
Water wants to flow.
Air wants to rise.
Earth wants to bind.
Chaos wants to devour.
I took the quiz on the website and the element I'd master at the Iron Trial is earth....not surprising, LOL!
PARENTS: There are some frightening scenes in these books, so you might want to preview before you allow a younger child read this book. Its target audience is grades 3 - 7.
Callum "Call" Hunt has been recruited to take entrance exams to a secret underground school for mages, "The Magisterium." The competition is stiff as only a few students are accepted.
Call wants to fail.
Every other student is competing as hard as he or she can to gain acceptance into the school, but Callum's father has warned him his whole life about the dangers at the Magisterium, how the mage instructors or masters use their students in experiments to glean knowledge about magic. Call's mother was killed during a mage war, and to complicate his life even further, he has a disability with a weak leg because he suffered a horrendous injury as a child. But in spite of Call's horrible performance during his admissions testing, he's admitted to the Magisterium and placed with the mage who had instructed his father years ago.
I enjoyed this book in spite of the fact that the school is underground in a series of caves. The plot is fast-paced, something readers have come to expect from Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. I had to pay attention to every word so I wouldn't miss anything important. Call and his teammates Tamara and Aaron eventually bond and work together to face frightening foes in an unexpected climax. The three friends' characters are well-developed, and I can't wait to read their next adventure in The Copper Gauntlet.
Fire wants to burn
Water wants to flow.
Air wants to rise.
Earth wants to bind.
Chaos wants to devour.
I took the quiz on the website and the element I'd master at the Iron Trial is earth....not surprising, LOL!
PARENTS: There are some frightening scenes in these books, so you might want to preview before you allow a younger child read this book. Its target audience is grades 3 - 7.
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I remember when Clare and Black first announced this new series and I was pretty excited. It sounded like great fun and definitely like something I’d be into. I always thought that if Cassandra Clare and Holly Black got together they could write something awesome because I find that Clare is pretty good with characters and relationships while Black is good with world-building and plot ideas. I don’t think this quite reached the potential it had, but I will get into that later.
The front cover of the ARC I have has a short note from the authors talking about how they came up with the idea for this. I definitely regret reading it because it says outright what the nature of the twist is and so I was trying to guess it the whole time through and it wasn’t all that surprising when I did get to it. Other than this, I did enjoy the book – but unfortunately not nearly as much as I wanted to. I liked the characters and I liked the idea of it. Tamara was especially good, and I like that there’s quite a bit of representation in it too. But Cassandra Clare has always been pretty good with that.
I also thought it was pretty funny and a pretty fun read – kids of all ages would definitely enjoy it and I felt it had a more similar feel to Percy Jackson rather than to Harry Potter unlike what some of the Goodreads comments say (although I have some more to write on that as well).
Read the rest of this review on my blog!
The front cover of the ARC I have has a short note from the authors talking about how they came up with the idea for this. I definitely regret reading it because it says outright what the nature of the twist is and so I was trying to guess it the whole time through and it wasn’t all that surprising when I did get to it. Other than this, I did enjoy the book – but unfortunately not nearly as much as I wanted to. I liked the characters and I liked the idea of it. Tamara was especially good, and I like that there’s quite a bit of representation in it too. But Cassandra Clare has always been pretty good with that.
I also thought it was pretty funny and a pretty fun read – kids of all ages would definitely enjoy it and I felt it had a more similar feel to Percy Jackson rather than to Harry Potter unlike what some of the Goodreads comments say (although I have some more to write on that as well).
Read the rest of this review on my blog!
I was going to rate this book 4 stars. It was a cute middle-grade read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but there really was not anything that set it apart from other middle-grade fantasy books. But then, THAT PLOT TWIST!!! I should not have doubted Cassandra Clare (I have not read any Holly Black yet, but I plan on it :D)! This should be a super interesting series, and I am excited to see how the problems are resolved! I don't know how I will be able to wait a whole year before the next installment comes out!!!
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
so this was just your typical fantasy trope overload with some typical flat characters.
i'm sorry but i can't stand the same line being repeated five times every chapter. or the fact that the iron trial which this book is named after is literally just a twisted version of the SATs mixed with some original paper-levitating and element-summoning.
and of course there's this constantine voldemort madden who's not as he seems.
i really don't know. it just felt so long even though it wasn't. so much of it was just meh factor.
i'm sorry but i can't stand the same line being repeated five times every chapter. or the fact that the iron trial which this book is named after is literally just a twisted version of the SATs mixed with some original paper-levitating and element-summoning.
and of course there's this constantine voldemort madden who's not as he seems.
i really don't know. it just felt so long even though it wasn't. so much of it was just meh factor.
This is a great read for people who enjoy magical mysteries with a twist. I would describe it as a mash up of Harry Potter and [b:Water Keep|3223890|Water Keep (Farworld, #1)|J. Scott Savage|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1414559835s/3223890.jpg|3257983].
All I’m going to say is that this book crumpled my emotions up like a piece of paper. There wasn’t any point in the the book that I was bored and it read really smoothly/ quickly. The writing wasn’t too complex and flowery which was a plus for me since I just finished a 900 hundred page book which was 80% flowery descriptions and it was so nice reading something a bit more simple. The reason why I’m not giving it 5 starts is because before the end plot twist the story was slightly reminding me of Harry Potter which wasn’t a huge thing since the story ended up going in a different direction, although I will say that the ending did remind me slightly of Harry being Voldemort’s horcrux ( I probs spelt that wrong ) but maybe that’s just me. But despite that I loved the book and can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of the series.