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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
DNF. I trudged through 60 pages without reaching any sort of plot. It’s all exposition, over-explanations, and train-of-thought narration. I skimmed through a few of the later pages and found more of the same. Snoozeville. Too much else to read to bother with this. It gets 2 stars for its creative potential.
4.5-star
⛰ What It’s About
Basically it’s about a girl who goes to a school without teachers where young wizards go to improve their odds of surviving in the outside world. The school itself is deadly, with all kinds of maleficarias “mals” lurking in every corner. Mals thrive on mana emitted by wizards and teenagers have plenty of them. Being at school is a threat of its own since a huge amount of young wizards gathering in one place also equals a huge dinner platter for the maleficarias to munch on. However, it’s still way better than living outside the school, since at least there the students can learn how to survive using the knowledge the school provides for them.
Our heroine, Galadriel “El”, is an ultra-powerful girl who has no friends and is horrible at human interaction. She hates the world and the world hates her back. She has too much mana and no one knows about it because she has no one to talk to. The only ones who are aware of her mana are the mals. That’s why she’s always swarmed by them every minute of the day, living her life constantly on edge of dying.
Then, one day she gets rescued by the school hero, Orion Lake, who has no qualms about the mals whatsoever since he’s so invincible. Ever since, El is swept up into his world and has to deal with all of his theatrics and heroic nonsense day in and day out, while also trying to keep herself and her expanding circle of friends alive for the graduation, if they’re lucky, that is.
⛰ What It’s About
Basically it’s about a girl who goes to a school without teachers where young wizards go to improve their odds of surviving in the outside world. The school itself is deadly, with all kinds of maleficarias “mals” lurking in every corner. Mals thrive on mana emitted by wizards and teenagers have plenty of them. Being at school is a threat of its own since a huge amount of young wizards gathering in one place also equals a huge dinner platter for the maleficarias to munch on. However, it’s still way better than living outside the school, since at least there the students can learn how to survive using the knowledge the school provides for them.
Our heroine, Galadriel “El”, is an ultra-powerful girl who has no friends and is horrible at human interaction. She hates the world and the world hates her back. She has too much mana and no one knows about it because she has no one to talk to. The only ones who are aware of her mana are the mals. That’s why she’s always swarmed by them every minute of the day, living her life constantly on edge of dying.
Then, one day she gets rescued by the school hero, Orion Lake, who has no qualms about the mals whatsoever since he’s so invincible. Ever since, El is swept up into his world and has to deal with all of his theatrics and heroic nonsense day in and day out, while also trying to keep herself and her expanding circle of friends alive for the graduation, if they’re lucky, that is.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Too much like Harry Potter. Not my cup of tea
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
meh. el and orion’s relationship grew on me. definitely a lot of info dumping which made it hard to get through some sections of the book, especially at the start. got a bit better towards the end though. shame because the setting and plot was actually really interesting but i felt like the execution was done poorly.
I am not the target audience for this book, I think. I was gifted it by a friend, and though I enjoyed it - I found myself thinking that it was definitely not *for* me.
The book follows the lives of magical teenagers living at a Hogwarts-clone that wants to kill them. The magic system is robust enough to be interesting, but vague enough to allow handwaving of certain events without requiring too much thought.
The will they/won't they of the protags was quite gripping until the end, if you are into that kind of thing. Honestly, I spent most of the second half of the book wondering what the purpose of making the characters 16 was. The school is structured as a university would be, and a lot of the description of the courses and lessons are based on colleges and university courses. The book is distinctively non-YA in many ways, but it still felt like it was dancing around being properly dark and I wonder if that was to do with the ages of the characters.
Anyway, it was a fun romp. 3.5/5
Didn't enjoy the ending though.
The book follows the lives of magical teenagers living at a Hogwarts-clone that wants to kill them. The magic system is robust enough to be interesting, but vague enough to allow handwaving of certain events without requiring too much thought.
The will they/won't they of the protags was quite gripping until the end, if you are into that kind of thing. Honestly, I spent most of the second half of the book wondering what the purpose of making the characters 16 was. The school is structured as a university would be, and a lot of the description of the courses and lessons are based on colleges and university courses. The book is distinctively non-YA in many ways, but it still felt like it was dancing around being properly dark and I wonder if that was to do with the ages of the characters.
Anyway, it was a fun romp. 3.5/5
Didn't enjoy the ending though.
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-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:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
slow-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