How are you?
Welcome to my first Book Review Monday of 2017 and for my first review of 2017, I thought that I would review my first read of 2017- The Paper Magician by Charlie N Holmberg. My best friend bought me it for Christmas as I saw it once on Amazon and thought it sounded interesting. You guys know how my reviews are formatted, so I will get straight into my review.
The Paper Magician by Charlie N Holmberg- Contains Spoilers
Non-Spoiler Thoughts
I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice, fast read to start the read of with. I had seen some very negative reviews on Goodreads and began to doubt whether it was worth my time. It was. I would describe it as a cross between The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare and the Harry Potter series. There were some moments that I found a bit "off", but apart from that I really enjoyed this book.
Cover Chat
I really like the covers for this series as they give VERY subtle things away. I also love that they are quite minimalistic. I hate it when covers looks overcrowded. I really like it when covers have silhouettes on them and because the book is set in the Victorian/ Edwardian period, you get this amazing puffy dress. I don't think my description is doing this cover any justice.
Plot
Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic… forever.
Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined — animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.
An Excisioner — a practitioner of dark, flesh magic — invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.As always, this summary is taken from Goodreads. The average rating on Goodreads is 3.62/5. This is taken from 35423 ratings and 4224 reviews.
Opinions
I gave this book 4/5 stars. Like I said at the beginning of my review, I really enjoyed this book. I love reading fantasy and this was something a bit different. If you love fantasy and are looking for something different, I suggest you pick up The Paper Magician.In The Paper Magician, there are several different forms of Magic. Ceony is a Paper Magician, so she is "bonded" to Paper. I found myself thinking "of just get over it" every time she complained that she was becoming a Paper Magician rather than a Metal Magician. The book captured what it's like when things don't go to plan in a really weird way.
The Paper Magician was set in London, so I'm assuming the characters were English/ British. At one point in the book, Ceony was talking about her mother and was calling her "Mom". It is very rare that someone in the UK will refer to their mother as "Mom". This tiny detail annoyed me a little bit as it felt out of place with the story.
The section where Ceony was going through Thane's heart was very moving. I really enjoyed learning things about Thane's past, but we also got to learn things about Ceony too. During this scene, we met the villain who was Thane's Ex-Wife, Lira. Lira wasn't that great of a character. She was hardly there and didn't scare me. The end of this book was supposed to be an epic showdown but it wasn't that epic. It just sort of happened and I had to reread the scene to realize it had happened.
Towards the end of the book we find out that Ceony is falling in love with Thane. Ceony is 19 and Thane is in his thirties. I don't want to read a love story between a 19 year old and a middle aged man. I really hope that they stay friends rather than become lovers.
So that is my review of The Paper Magician by Charlie N Holmberg. I will definitely be continuing with this series later this year as I am interested to see where the author takes this series.
Love,
Carenza x
