alannabarras 's review for:

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

3.0

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I really liked the world created in this book, as well as all of the individual characters. However, the romance introduced at the end I thought was shoehorned into the plot, and did not add anything to the story overall. Forcing romances lessens the value of platonic friendships across genders, something we don't see enough in books. The age difference also bothered me - teacher/student plus the age difference is tricky to navigate at the best of times, and in this case I think should have been avoided entirely.

All that being said, I absolutely plan to read the sequel when I get the chance, as I absolutely love the system of magic the author has created and I want to see what more they do with it.