Hullo, everyone! Isabelle Knight here again with the monthly book review/recommendation! Oh, and by the way, just a reminder if you didn’t see the last post, Enchantria book one is out now so go and check it out! The link is at the bottom of this post and in the books page. Now let’s get on with the show!
The Book of the Month for August is…. (drum roll)
The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas!
Ta-da! I recently read this book. I recently LOVED IT! The Magic Thief is about a boy named Conn. He lives in the Twilight, a part of the city, and is a thief. One day, he steals a wizard’s locus magicalicus (not sure if I spell that right), a sort of stone that wizards use to do magic. It’s supposed to kill him, but it doesn’t, and the wizard ‘takes him on as his apprentice’. Conn has a lot more adventures after that, especially with all the magic dwindling in the city and having to find his locus magicalicus. (Here’s a clue for what it is: The book cover). It’s just so interesting and so much fun! I was hooked until the end!
The characters are AMAZING. My favorite characters have to be Conn and Nevery, the wizard. Conn because he is the main character and, in this book, has a lot more depth compared to the others. Nevery because he is SO SO SO FUNNY. He’s not really like Pinkie Pie funny, but he’s (at least, in my opinion) a grumpy old grouch (he does care, though), and all his journal entries were hilarious to read. Even if the grammar was terribly off. My favorite part has to be the journal entry when Nevery writes ‘boy eating pantry bare’. 😂🤣 I laughed so hard at that.
There are two things I wish to complain about, though. One, the character of Rowan. Rowan is a girl that Conn meets at the academicos (school), and she is the one who is supposed to teach him how to read. While she is kinda mysterious, I just feel like she lacks that depth… I also wish she had more to do with the story. Maybe she will in the later books. I haven’t read them because they’re not on Kindle Unlimited.
The second thing is that I feel like the inciting incident happens a bit too soon (though I may or may not have made that mistake in my own book…. so… can’t really complain about this). I’m not sure if this book follows any certain ‘story structure’, but all stories (nearly all) have an inciting incident, which is something that just thrusts the MC into the new world and gets the story going. For me, the inciting incident here is when Conn steals Nevery’s locus magicalicus. I feel like it happens way too soon when they meet and an… incident happens. I wish that I had gotten to know the main character better before that so that the inciting incident would be more impactful.
However, there are many things I LOVE about this book, especially Sarah Prineas’s writing. I loved her writing! It’s kind of telling while also showing, and it doesn’t have over the top details, but I can still get a sense of what the story, setting, and characters are really like. I also love the scene where Conn turns into a cat with a spell that is WAY too long to memorize.
Overall, this book is AMAZING! It’s definitely a must-read for anyone who loves middle-grade fantasy that is fast-paced, a quick read (for a speed reader), and has a lot of world-building that’s so magical but not over complex. I’d give this… an eight out of five stars! 😊😊😊 Highly recommend! Must find space for it in my top ten favorite books!
Yeah, so this wraps up this book review, and I’d better get back to revising book four (yes, I’M ON BOOK FOUR!!!!!!!). So, thank you SO MUCH for coming, please go and read Enchantria and stick around at least until book two, and I hope you enjoyed this blog and will go and read The Magic Thief! Adios! Au revoir! Annyeong! Goodbye! And… that’s all the languages I know how to say goodbye in.
Isabelle
P.S. Here’s the link to book one of the Enchantria series! Enchantria: Guardian’s Heir.
