You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
rayofbooks 's review for:
The Crowns of Croswald
by D.E. Night
If you love Harry Potter and magic boarding schools - this is the right book for you!
The Crowns of Croswald is the first book in the Croswald Series and a perfect introduction to a new world. The main character is Ivy Lovely, a 16 year old girl who works as a maid in the kitchen of a castle and never would have thought to be special. After an incident she and the scaldron Humboldt get kicked out. They cross the border that separates the mundane from the magical and Ivy suddenly has powers. She then gets to "The Halls of Ivy" - a boarding school for people like her. There they learn to control their magical blood and the power of their gems. She meets friends and gets sucked into an adventure, cause somehow she remembers someone she shouldn't know and noone else knows.
I personally love books with magical school or camps. But I sadly couldn't connect with the Halls of Ivy, maybe because I had so many unanswered questions. Ivy is a great main character, she is brave and sweet. But I don't think that she acted her age. Ivy's emotions weren't conveyed, what I personally found to be missing. But I loved her roommate and best friend Rebecca. At first I thought that she would be snobbish and bragy but she was the complete opposite! Fun was great too but I have so many questions about him. He appeared a lot but they never talked about him. Another thing I loved was how mysterious everything was! The Dark Queen and the Selector were mentioned a lot but I know close to nothing about them! I loved the cover and the illustrations at the beginning of every chapter, they were gorgeous and magical. But there are a few things I disliked. Firstly, the plot was too slow! It took me more than 10 chapters to actually get into the storyline. But then, the last chapter was too fast! Too much happened in a short amount of time, which I found really confusing. In addition to that, the world building was really confusing for me too.
I loved D.E Nights writing! She worked with detailed and awesome descriptions and created a magical feeling and image throughout the whole book.
The book reminded me of Harry Potter and the school for good and evil.
I highly recommend this to young fantasy readers.
All in all, I gave "The Crowns of Croswald" 4 out of 5 stars. It was a fast read and really enjoyable.
The Crowns of Croswald is the first book in the Croswald Series and a perfect introduction to a new world. The main character is Ivy Lovely, a 16 year old girl who works as a maid in the kitchen of a castle and never would have thought to be special. After an incident she and the scaldron Humboldt get kicked out. They cross the border that separates the mundane from the magical and Ivy suddenly has powers. She then gets to "The Halls of Ivy" - a boarding school for people like her. There they learn to control their magical blood and the power of their gems. She meets friends and gets sucked into an adventure, cause somehow she remembers someone she shouldn't know and noone else knows.
I personally love books with magical school or camps. But I sadly couldn't connect with the Halls of Ivy, maybe because I had so many unanswered questions. Ivy is a great main character, she is brave and sweet. But I don't think that she acted her age. Ivy's emotions weren't conveyed, what I personally found to be missing. But I loved her roommate and best friend Rebecca. At first I thought that she would be snobbish and bragy but she was the complete opposite! Fun was great too but I have so many questions about him. He appeared a lot but they never talked about him. Another thing I loved was how mysterious everything was! The Dark Queen and the Selector were mentioned a lot but I know close to nothing about them! I loved the cover and the illustrations at the beginning of every chapter, they were gorgeous and magical. But there are a few things I disliked. Firstly, the plot was too slow! It took me more than 10 chapters to actually get into the storyline. But then, the last chapter was too fast! Too much happened in a short amount of time, which I found really confusing. In addition to that, the world building was really confusing for me too.
I loved D.E Nights writing! She worked with detailed and awesome descriptions and created a magical feeling and image throughout the whole book.
The book reminded me of Harry Potter and the school for good and evil.
I highly recommend this to young fantasy readers.
All in all, I gave "The Crowns of Croswald" 4 out of 5 stars. It was a fast read and really enjoyable.