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castoffcreature's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
storiesofmagic's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
saraishelafs's review against another edition
4.0
A young noble goes to school and gets caught up in his father's shenanigans.
cassandragraph's review
3.0
Enjoyable fluffy read
A high fantasy story that did not seem to catch its pace until half way through. I enjoyed the characters even if they were a bit fan fictiony at times. The magical system was intriguing but there were a lot of loose ends. Despite its rough start I enjoyed the book and will be reading the next in the series.
A high fantasy story that did not seem to catch its pace until half way through. I enjoyed the characters even if they were a bit fan fictiony at times. The magical system was intriguing but there were a lot of loose ends. Despite its rough start I enjoyed the book and will be reading the next in the series.
novelinsights's review against another edition
3.0
The Alchemist's Touch is a fantasy book about a merchant's son with the potential to become an alchemist. He has a horrible relationship with his father, but eventually, his family relents and lets him attend a magical academy to learn to harness his abilities.
I thought this book had a lot of potential. The three main characters were likable, and I thought the branched magic system was interesting. However, not enough happened in this book. Our main character was very passive, and I didn't even have a hint that a plot would actually be happening until about halfway through the book. Even then, the plot point was, "Main character asked to deliver parcel. Assumes it will be dangerous or bad in some way. Delivers parcel. Nothing happens." Though the character's curiosity regarding what was inside the parcel was eating away at him, he didn't decide to investigate this while he was out delivering it. No, he went home, lived his life, and what I believe to be at least weeks later, he finally decides he can't take it anymore and wants to go on a mission to figure out what was within the parcel. This seemed so absurd to me, A) because it would have been much more interesting to read if some actual action had taken place during the initial delivery, and B) because most people who receive parcels tend to OPEN THEM, meaning that the characters had no reason to even believe that they could just return to the same place and have the person still be there and the parcel still be unopened. The whole thing made no sense to me.
The slow-to-develop plot and lack of direct action by the protagonist was my biggest complaint, but there were a couple little things that also bothered me about the book. One, though it may have been something I personally projected onto the book, was that it felt a little bit like a less interesting version of Harry Potter. Our male main character, who comes from a miserable home life, makes friends with a ginger boy and a blonde-ish girl and they attend an academy together that's located in a castle and has them dress up in black robes to learn how to do magic. You can see where I'm coming from. However, the main character hardly learns any actual magic throughout the course of the book and there's a lot less going on.
This is perhaps a little nitpicky, but I was also somewhat bothered by the fact that the only person of color in the entire book was an antagonist. I have no problem with non-white antagonists, but if you're going to do that, you should have other characters of color that are good (or at the very least, neutral) as well.
Also, there was what felt like a little bit of an inconsistency with terminology. Ebon, our main character, referred to individuals who could do magic by colloquial terms (alchemist, weremage, etc.). In the book, there were more proper terms that they used to refer to themselves (transmuter,therianthrope, etc.) and everybody yelled at Ebon in the beginning for not using these proper terms. In real life, as you immerse yourself more and more in a field of study, the proper terminology comes naturally to you, and you tend to find yourself annoyed with people who refer to things improperly. However, instead of that happening here, Ebon continued to use the improper terms, and the characters slowly stopped policing him and, toward the end of the book, started using these improper terms themselves, which made no sense to me. It felt like the author didn't really want to use the proper terms, either, which leaves me to question why he bothered putting them in in the first place.
One more positive thing that I would like to mention about this book, though, was that it handled women very well. I liked that pretty much any position in this world (including High King) could be held by a male or a female, and there were a lot of powerful women in the story. I felt that this world was a lot more equal in power and rights than the real world, which is something I always hope to see in fictional universes. Also, one of the main characters was a lesbian, and it was not relevant to the plot in any way, which I also liked.
Overall, this definitely wasn't a bad book, but it could have been done better, and I don't feel particularly inclined to pick up the next volume of the series.
I thought this book had a lot of potential. The three main characters were likable, and I thought the branched magic system was interesting. However, not enough happened in this book. Our main character was very passive, and I didn't even have a hint that a plot would actually be happening until about halfway through the book. Even then, the plot point was, "Main character asked to deliver parcel. Assumes it will be dangerous or bad in some way. Delivers parcel. Nothing happens." Though the character's curiosity regarding what was inside the parcel was eating away at him, he didn't decide to investigate this while he was out delivering it. No, he went home, lived his life, and what I believe to be at least weeks later, he finally decides he can't take it anymore and wants to go on a mission to figure out what was within the parcel. This seemed so absurd to me, A) because it would have been much more interesting to read if some actual action had taken place during the initial delivery, and B) because most people who receive parcels tend to OPEN THEM, meaning that the characters had no reason to even believe that they could just return to the same place and have the person still be there and the parcel still be unopened. The whole thing made no sense to me.
The slow-to-develop plot and lack of direct action by the protagonist was my biggest complaint, but there were a couple little things that also bothered me about the book. One, though it may have been something I personally projected onto the book, was that it felt a little bit like a less interesting version of Harry Potter. Our male main character, who comes from a miserable home life, makes friends with a ginger boy and a blonde-ish girl and they attend an academy together that's located in a castle and has them dress up in black robes to learn how to do magic. You can see where I'm coming from. However, the main character hardly learns any actual magic throughout the course of the book and there's a lot less going on.
This is perhaps a little nitpicky, but I was also somewhat bothered by the fact that the only person of color in the entire book was an antagonist. I have no problem with non-white antagonists, but if you're going to do that, you should have other characters of color that are good (or at the very least, neutral) as well.
Also, there was what felt like a little bit of an inconsistency with terminology. Ebon, our main character, referred to individuals who could do magic by colloquial terms (alchemist, weremage, etc.). In the book, there were more proper terms that they used to refer to themselves (transmuter,therianthrope, etc.) and everybody yelled at Ebon in the beginning for not using these proper terms. In real life, as you immerse yourself more and more in a field of study, the proper terminology comes naturally to you, and you tend to find yourself annoyed with people who refer to things improperly. However, instead of that happening here, Ebon continued to use the improper terms, and the characters slowly stopped policing him and, toward the end of the book, started using these improper terms themselves, which made no sense to me. It felt like the author didn't really want to use the proper terms, either, which leaves me to question why he bothered putting them in in the first place.
One more positive thing that I would like to mention about this book, though, was that it handled women very well. I liked that pretty much any position in this world (including High King) could be held by a male or a female, and there were a lot of powerful women in the story. I felt that this world was a lot more equal in power and rights than the real world, which is something I always hope to see in fictional universes. Also, one of the main characters was a lesbian, and it was not relevant to the plot in any way, which I also liked.
Overall, this definitely wasn't a bad book, but it could have been done better, and I don't feel particularly inclined to pick up the next volume of the series.
ephermeyal's review against another edition
4.0
I may not have like the characters enough to genuinely care about their well-being, but I enjoyed reading this. This was really easy to follow and it was exactly the fast-paced academy fantasy book I was in the mood for.
ambientmagic's review against another edition
DNF at 42%. Not plot-driven enough for me
adapted_batteries's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I was hoping it would be more clearly queer, and Ebon annoyed me as a character. Also, I really don't like the word "mayhap" so I was low level annoyed the whole book because everyone loved using that instead of "perhaps" or "maybe". The magic system was cool though.
mistyfoot19's review
5.0
I absolutely loved this book! A great Harry Potter-style tale. I first looked at it and decided to read it because it was advertised as a "gay Harry Potter," and while it does have somewhat of that same feel, it's really a novel all its own. A school of magic, seemingly forbidden to our protagonist, is suddenly within his grasp. But what repercussions could come from this unexpected windfall?
Only one character is canonly LGBTQ+, at least through this book, but I think I just enjoyed the feel of reading a story, especially a fantasy story, that is LGBTQ+ friendly, even if the protagonist himself isn't (canonly) LGBTQ+ (yet). I still hold out hope for later books, lol.
Overall, just a really fun book, a great story, and an easy read.
Overall, just a really fun book, a great story, and an easy read.