Hello, Friends!
Today, I'm going to review The Paper Magician by Charlie N.
Holmberg. (P.S. I read it a while ago, so I might not remember all my
pros and cons.) The Paper Magician is about Ceony, a student
who has just graduated top of her class, but instead of working metal
magic, the very reason she wanted to become a magician, is assigned
to an apprenticeship in the dying art of paper magic. Ceony is
crushed. However, as she begins to learn paper magic, she realizes it
has much more to offer than she first assumed. One day, an
Excisioner, someone who practices the forbidden art of blood magic,
pays Ceony and her teacher, Emery, a visit. When the Excisioner
leaves, she takes Emery's heart with her. Ceony must find Emery's
heart and restore it to his body, before his body dies. However,
whilst on her quest, she gets trapped in Emery's stolen heart. She
must now not only figure out how to return Emery's heart to his body,
but first must figure out a way to get out of it.
I gave this book four stars. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and it was
different than the typical YA fantasy book in this day and age, so it
proved quite nice.
Pros:
- I really liked Ceony. She seemed like a very real, very nice person. Not the type like Cinder, who I always wish would be my friend, but would never actually be. I feel like I could be friends with Ceony.
- The story was different from the YA fantasy stereotypical protagonist discovers he/she/they/etc. have special powers, go on adventure, have a love interest (or a couple), and discover they have to save their kingdom/country/world. Yes, the government had been trying to catch the bad people, but it wasn't like everyone anywhere knew who Ceony and Emery were, and knew what had happened to them.
- The view of Emery's heart was really unique. I really liked how Holmberg relates the flesh-and-blood heart to the spiritual heart. Each of the four chambers of the heart has a specific emotion attached to it. It's kind of hard to explain. This provides uniqueness to the story, as well.
Cons:
- I felt like we didn't get to see much of Ceony's family. She has a few siblings and loving parents, whom she seems close with, so it felt like she should have thought of them/mentioned them more, even if we didn't actually get to see them a ton.
- SPOILER ALERT: The relationship (as in Ceony likes Emery, her teacher) is a little weird because he's so much older than her. This didn't bother me too much, though.
- There were probably a few more small ones, but I read it a while ago, so I don't quite remember. If I can't remember them, they were probably quite minor. :)
Another note: The world was taken as granted. In other words, it was
London, but with a magic twist. Magic was involved in the government
as well. I can't say more than that, because I don't know. There
wasn't much world-building; rather, things were brought up like
someone would mention the two-party system in government here: like
the reader already knew what Holmberg was talking about. This left a
bit for the reader to imply, but I think that was nice, in some ways.
The magic was what was important in the book, and because the book
was one person's quest and two people's relationship, the government
structure didn't really matter.
The Paper Magician had a really nice flavor. It's definitely magic, but there's a good bit of romance, too (and by that I mean not very much, just a very nice flavor of romance. I don't normally like the flavors of romance in YA fantasy books.) I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series. I have the second book, and I believe there are four. Also, thankfully, the series is done! Charlie N. Holmberg has other books too, though, which is nice.
Have you read The Paper Magician? What did you like about it?
What didn't you like about it?
Farewell!
Spruce Nogard
