The Glass Magician

I like Ceony, but there were some seriously overconfident choices made by an apprentice in this story. I kept thinking about Harry Potter, and how at least in the first books, trouble found him rather than him chasing after it. I wonder how this story may have gone if it had shifted slightly in that direction a little more. An easy, entertaining read otherwise.

Well, that was unexpected.

While this book is even more engaging than the previous one, I feel like it kind of drags on at some points and getting through those scenes was a bit of a struggle for me. The romance is slightly thicker and tends to make its way into the spotlight every now and then, but it's still adorable so I have no complaints about that part.

The antagonists, however, still suffer from the same issue Lira had. They lack depth. Their motivations and backgrounds are unclear, making it feel like they're evil for the sake of being evil. That makes it hard to feel anything for them.

I really liked Ceony's friendship with Delilah too, so the ending leaves me feeling a bit bitter... but otherwise it was a very enjoyable read.

Enjoyable and pretty fast-moving follow up to the Paper Magician by Holmberg. In this one, the protagonist picks up in her 2nd year of training and again becomes embroiled in a crazy series of events resulting from the aftermath of the previous book (trying to avoid spoilers here!). These two books are close enough that it could have been a single volume, honestly. And that's a good thing. The romantic head-talk is a bit much (for a guy), but honestly, that's the only detractor to this one, and is likely something specific to me. Definitely will be following up with the 3rd in the series before long.