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nerdybkwrm 's review for:
The Iron Trial
by Holly Black, Cassandra Clare
What with all the hate on this book about being a Harry Potter copy. Why is it okay to have a thousand stories about vampires, but the minute you put students in a school of magic, it's a HP ripoff? If I wanted to create a believable system of magic, I would surely want their to be a place or system where young magic users are trained to use magic responsibly. Trust me, I have kids and they would wreak all levels of mayhem if they had magic and no training. Yes, there are similarities to HP, and yet ... there are enough difference for this story to stand on it's on.
The characters are magic users called mages. Their magic is very elemental and controlled by will. There are no fancy magical incantations here. The kids go to a school of magic called the Magisterium, where they are trained in an apprenticeship system.
The main protagonist, Callum (Call) Hunt, is an outcast with a physical disability and an eccentric father. The small family is shadowed by the death of his mother in a magical war. He has been brought up to believe that magic and mages are bad. Confusion mounts as he enters the magic world and all his beliefs, about the world and himself, are challenged. He is at times sympathetic, but has a brash recklessness that can make him unlikeable. His character is cloaked in uncertainty. Will he ultimately be hero or villain?
This world is woven layers of secrets and lies, where answers only lead to more questions. In the end I really enjoyed it and am invested enough to want to know what happens next.
The characters are magic users called mages. Their magic is very elemental and controlled by will. There are no fancy magical incantations here. The kids go to a school of magic called the Magisterium, where they are trained in an apprenticeship system.
The main protagonist, Callum (Call) Hunt, is an outcast with a physical disability and an eccentric father. The small family is shadowed by the death of his mother in a magical war. He has been brought up to believe that magic and mages are bad. Confusion mounts as he enters the magic world and all his beliefs, about the world and himself, are challenged. He is at times sympathetic, but has a brash recklessness that can make him unlikeable. His character is cloaked in uncertainty. Will he ultimately be hero or villain?
This world is woven layers of secrets and lies, where answers only lead to more questions. In the end I really enjoyed it and am invested enough to want to know what happens next.