The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
At the moment I’m saying 3 but it’s possibly 3.5
As usual, my reviews contain spoilers so if that bothers you stop reading now.
So, I wasn’t bored reading this book but it did leave me questioning the point of it all. Let me begin this by saying I think it was an interesting concept, I have faith it is going to be an entertaining series, and the writing was fine. That being said, it was a short book and a substantial amount of it took place through sort of flashbacks. What I mean is they weren’t flashback scenes but during the climax of the story Ceony is pursuing an excisioner (and her teacher’s former love interest) to rescue Emery’s heart.
Of course, it’s a bit of a play on meaning since Ceony is also in love/starting to fall in love with her teacher and is willing to go to great lengths to rescue him from his past. I thought the world itself has potential as does the magic system but we barely see any of that. We know Ceony was familiar with the magical world and the non-magical world so it wasn’t like Harry Potter, the two worlds are integrated.
The story is really only two parts. There’s the first portion where Ceony is learning how to be a folder, and the second part when a dark magician bursts through the door, takes Emery’s heart, and Ceony pursues. We learned far more about Emery than we do about Ceony. Though Ceony tries to hold her own with Emery’s troubled past by listing every mistake she made in life, it didn’t paint nearly as whole of a picture as the scene by scene journey through Emery’s life.
As I said, I was entertained enough to continue this series and I see a lot of potential upside, but nothing about this book blew me away. That being said, the series might end up being fantastic since all my complaints are of omission and not faults in the book itself.
R.K. Gold 