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4.17 AVERAGE
4.17 AVERAGE
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This may be a magic school book on the cover, but at its heart it's a novel about being a teacher. I continue to be curious how it reads for people without teaching experience. As a former teacher, to me the plot was basically a story of working very hard to craft the perfect teacher persona and then being utterly consumed by it, in a dramatically metaphorical fashion.
Per usual with Emily Tesh, the plot twist got me good. This time around I even thought I knew what to expect, but I did not, it was different. It wasn't even that shocking except that I was getting overly focused on other plot elements!
This book stands out in the magic school subgenre for having a teacher as the protagonist. Maybe this is also why it was the least-magic magic school I've yet read, hahaha. It was honestly refreshing. Anyway, very enjoyable, I think I finished it in two days; I will continue to read everything Tesh writes.
Per usual with Emily Tesh, the plot twist got me good. This time around I even thought I knew what to expect, but I did not, it was different. It wasn't even that shocking except that I was getting overly focused on other plot elements!
This book stands out in the magic school subgenre for having a teacher as the protagonist. Maybe this is also why it was the least-magic magic school I've yet read, hahaha. It was honestly refreshing. Anyway, very enjoyable, I think I finished it in two days; I will continue to read everything Tesh writes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Classism
Minor: Child abuse, Sexual content
Details re: death CWs — The parent deaths (of a student, not the protagonist) are in the past; the child death is also in the past but gets revisited in more detail. No current students in the protagonist's care are killed in the course of the story.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Oddly slow for a book about demons and demonic possession! I enjoyed the academic bits more than the magic bits of this one.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
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
A magic school book for the jaded millennials who now identify more with the teachers than the students. I loved this.
medium-paced
This was fun and unique, and I hope it gets more attention! Set at a school of magic, the main character is a 38-year-old bisexual teacher known for her talent in summoning demons. This is much more of a cozy fantasy than a dark academia. There is a sapphic romance, but it is very much in the background, and we get more details about her trysts with the scummy Mark Daubrey than with the true love interest, Laura Kenning, which was disappointing. The end felt like it wrapped up a bit too neatly, but it was satisfying all the same. Read for demon summoning and fighting, magic school, and a millennial's POV teaching angsty teens.
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A book that was pitched as like The Schololamance trilogy except from the POV of a teacher? There has perhaps never been a book more ideally suited to me!
I loooooved this book. It was so funny and warm and heartfelt but also SO REAL as a teacher. The stupid things kids say and do?? Only a current/former teacher could have that kind of insight! It was so funny reading this and recognizing some of the exact mannerisms and general characters that I have encountered in classrooms. I felt very seen.
I absolutely loved Dr. Walden. She was an amazing MC and I deeply enjoyed following her and being in her head. She was everything you would want in a teacher and a senior leader.
The book also had some very clear and extremely accurate criticisms of the English education system, and the state of education more broadly. I very much welcomed reading those.
The only thing that brought this book down slightly for me was the end. It felt a bit rushed and confusing (which was kind of the point but still). But it truly was still such an amazing book! I would 100% recommend!
I loooooved this book. It was so funny and warm and heartfelt but also SO REAL as a teacher. The stupid things kids say and do?? Only a current/former teacher could have that kind of insight! It was so funny reading this and recognizing some of the exact mannerisms and general characters that I have encountered in classrooms. I felt very seen.
I absolutely loved Dr. Walden. She was an amazing MC and I deeply enjoyed following her and being in her head. She was everything you would want in a teacher and a senior leader.
The book also had some very clear and extremely accurate criticisms of the English education system, and the state of education more broadly. I very much welcomed reading those.
The only thing that brought this book down slightly for me was the end. It felt a bit rushed and confusing (which was kind of the point but still). But it truly was still such an amazing book! I would 100% recommend!
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Thanks to NetGalley and the Editor. I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I loved the idea of this book, and I should have loved the characters too, because we have the kind of characters that usually work well for me. But... but the whole thing didn't really work for me. It's not bad, but it was not enough to keep me interested. I was bored most of the time, and the more I read, the less I was inclined to pick up the book again. I am a bit sad, because the idea is pretty great, but... nope, we didn't click at all.
Around the halfway point, we are introduced to a new character, and the fun thing was that this was a kind of character that usually doesn't work so well for me, but here I really enjoyed Mark. But a single interesting character is not enough to bring forth the weight of the whole book.
It's not that Walden is a bad character; she is dedicated, and usually I love to see characters that love what they do and that are competent at it. And she fits the bill perfectly, but still... I wasn't invested in her, if not marginally.
I don't really know what went wrong between us, because on paper, it should have worked marvellously for me, but... nope, we didn't click.
This book wasn't bad, but despite having a lot of elements I usually enjoy, just didn't click with me. The main issue I had was how she blended magic and ordinary life. Usually that's something I love, but the difficulty was that while ordinary life affected magic, magic didn't really have much of an impact on ordinary life. (This is a bit of an oversimplification, but I'm talking about overall vibes, not details here.)
For example, the book opens withthe main character filling out a safety form to summon a demon for a lab class. Great! I love when mundane things are needed for magic! The book is full of things like this, when magic classes are slotted alongside science classes, etc, which usually I find so fun.
But there's never any flow back in the other direction: magic doesn't seem to have had any real impact on how the school is run, the way the world works, or anything outside the classroom really. The magic is very siloed and used in particular ways by particular people, but even for those people it doesn't seem to impact much outside of their jobs. Magic doesn't make anything easier or more interesting, it feels just as dreary as the other crappy aspects of teaching the character complains about. There's no joy in magic - even the main character, who is an extremely skilled magician, only seems to get academic pride and self importance out of it.
Honestly, this book kind of bummed me out. I think it's a good book, and the right person would probably love it, but it just really didn't work for me, even though I really wanted it to. (As an aside, I LOVED her other novel, some desperate glory, I think because her writing style felt much more suited to that sort of story.)
Also, I am entirely too gay to have any sympathy forthe main character's interest in the shitty posh guy, omg I am fully on the side of the lesbian characters there , so I found that whole aspect both annoying and unappealing. Which I know was kind of the point, but....eugh.
For example, the book opens with
But there's never any flow back in the other direction: magic doesn't seem to have had any real impact on how the school is run, the way the world works, or anything outside the classroom really. The magic is very siloed and used in particular ways by particular people, but even for those people it doesn't seem to impact much outside of their jobs. Magic doesn't make anything easier or more interesting, it feels just as dreary as the other crappy aspects of teaching the character complains about. There's no joy in magic - even the main character, who is an extremely skilled magician, only seems to get academic pride and self importance out of it.
Honestly, this book kind of bummed me out. I think it's a good book, and the right person would probably love it, but it just really didn't work for me, even though I really wanted it to. (As an aside, I LOVED her other novel, some desperate glory, I think because her writing style felt much more suited to that sort of story.)
Also, I am entirely too gay to have any sympathy for