Kate Googins

This was not nearly as compelling as I wanted it to be. It felt like a second draft. She writes compellingly and emotionally at times. Her characters and the relationships between them glue the book together, but barely. I wanted to keep reading the whole time, but the plot felt wholly predictable and overall lackluster. The author doesn't dig deep enough into the mechanics she created in order to satisfy the reader. The possibilities are just sitting there. It's like she wrote each situation without exploring alternatives before deciding on the final story arc.

Alchemy is an overpowered mechanic in the story, and it's limitations are not discussed as much as the possibilities, which makes the story boring. Similar to how a TV show is written with very few characters to keep the budget small, there are like 5 main characters in the whole book. The casts of characters on the sides of Lumines vs Grand Central are parallel in a redundant way rather than exploring the use of foils.

Largely, the problem with the novel boils down to the fact that the author's prose isn't efficient. She could cover much more ground if she learned to cut deeply with one sentence rather than bludgeoning the reader over the head with three.

If you love Travis Baldree's Legends and Lattes series, this cozy fantasy is for you!! It's a little spicier, and the stakes are a little higher, but it has just the right amount of twists and turns!!

I loved the first half of this book! The pacing was even better than the second half of Book 1. However, the quality fell off quite starkly in the second half. The voices of Louie and Mazen seemed to change between book 1 and book 2 while only Aisha’s character development felt appropriately motivated. The rest of the characters felt oddly hollow. I think the core of the issue lies in the protagonist’s distrust of both jinn leaders that offer her a bargain. When a character doesn’t know who to believe, the author faces a catch 22: writing the character as authentically confused, misled, etc AND leading the reader emotionally to the right conclusion before the character catches up. I don’t feel like that happens here. Instead, the results of Nabila’s plans to destroy the bindings don’t seem to have consequences that mirror how vital the decision was for Loulie to do Nabila’s bidding. There also seemed to be a general lack of surprise on behalf of the Queen and her court when Dhabab finally rises to the surface unharmed when the bindings are destroyed. Didn’t they believe that destroying the bindings would also destroy their world?

Overall, an enjoyable read, but I had hoped for a more cohesive reading experience.

2.5 stars. It seemed like the author really liked the 4th Harry Potter book specifically and modeled her book off of that. [spoilers ahead] It's Dark Magical Academia, one of the teachers is not as they seem, and there's a competition between students every X number of years that includes a maze that moves around all by itself. See what I mean?

Though there were many elements that were very different from Harry Potter, I really would have enjoyed it more if the author would have sacrificed the similarities for the sake of elaborating on the differences. The hard magic system was cool—corporeal magic is essentially attack magic, illusion magic is self explanatory, psyche magic manipulates minds, shadow magic is the forbidden super-powerful magic that eats your soul gradually as your use it. Then, there are two kinds I can't remember— one that you use to put up magical wards, and one to dismantle them.

I want more what-ifs. What's compelling about fantasy and sci-fi is that the author comes up with a premise—characters, a world, a magic system, etc, and then KEEPS asking what ifs. Let me give an example or two—

So these adolescents have been chosen to be students forever. What happens if you don't go to class? What happens if you get bad grades? What happens if you get great grades but are an absolute troublemaker. Do people ever get expelled? Where do people of other ages go besides the ether? Do they not find it suspicious that they're the only age group and exception to the whole “corrupted souls” bit the headmaster feeds them??

This book could have been something. And I do give the author grace because this is her debut!!

Overall, I think I.V. Marie needs to focus on:
- writing more efficient prose
- understanding the pieces of the game she's creating before using manipulating them extensively or creating more
- being less heavy handed with tropes. Tropes are useful but in order to be gratifying, they have to be subverted or unexpected in some way.

Looking forward to the next one.

I would rate 3.5 stars because I disagree more and more with how Fitz makes decisions, but Nighteyes makes me cry (and cry and cry), so that’s a solid for stars from me. Robin Hobb does it again, folks! I’m so excited for the final installment of the trilogy.