The Paper Magician

THIS BOOK!!! It started with so much promise! After the first 40% I was ready to give this 5 stars. I loved the magic, the world, the imagination. Then it got dark. So incredibly dark. It went from folding paper to blood magic and gore. It went from Harry Potter magic to The Evil Within/Resident Evil. It became a complete mess. It also perpetuates a relationship between teacher and student. NOT OK! Someone needs to get the rights to the world and make a new book out of it.

This is a fun book. The magic system feels unique to me, and that may be my favorite part of this book. I don't typically go for love stories, but this was a fun one. It wasn't too cheesy or steamy. I could see certain elements of the story being allusions to a ln even greater romantic story, but I will leave that for the romantics. 

I just picked this one randomly out of the suggested reads from Amazon, not really expecting much from it other than an enjoyable read. It was that and much more! I was shocked out how fast we were thrown into the action, and intrigued by the idea of a 20's era England with some Magic elements. I loved the story building and character arcs, though I did feel that the relationship between Ceony and her Mentor felt a tad bit rushed. This was such an intriguing premise and I highly suggest it!

8/10/2023 


This was a very short and arbitrary book. Infact it was so short that it suffered extremely from not having any natural progression of events. 

Every went like this
Apprentice protagonist meets kind and sweet teacher → crazy lady barges in and steals his heart →protagonist learns about his whole life while getting the heart back and confesses→ fight, gets heart back→ done

To me it read like an outline with sparse details. Things were happening because the author said so, not because it was a natural progression of the story. 

I couldn't immerse myself in it despite the interest in the magic system. 

Final Rating: 1 Star

This was a really interesting concept and fairly easy read. I finished the book because of those things, not because I felt very connected with the protagonists, which would have been my preference. There was just a little bit if world and character building lacking for me. I didn't realize we were turn of the century alternate-magical England until a quarter of the way through the book. I feel authors shouldn't be afraid to be more up front about that sort old thing. That said, the idea was so compelling, it did make up for it a little.

Another protagonist I hate. No, this is not “adult fantasy”. This is YA fantasy. Your typical YA romance.It started all right. The idea of paper folding magic was wonderful. But the [b:Daddy-Long-Legs 1499952 Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1) Jean Webster https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1545901408s/1499952.jpg 1710545] trope was yuk and it just went worse from there.It's so damned melodramatic. A 19 years old girl falling in love with her teacher, who is... what? at least 25, most likely much older than that. (“He looked to be about 25 which meant this happened several years ago”, or something like that.) And she gets really upset and jealous when she finds out he has an ex-wife. Come on!And when she started putting on makeup in the last chapter... OMG!I will not be reading any more Charlie N. Holmberg.

This book doesn't grab me right off the bat. It takes a while before I can truly get into the story and magic, but the fast pace and the clear, concise writing style made it engaging nonetheless. Ceony is a nice and relatable heroine. She has her flaws, of course, but she acknowledges them and tries to be a better person. She doesn't dwell on things she can't do anything about, and instead tries to make the best of her life—even if it's different from what she wanted.

The romance is thin, but adorable. Emery's past gives so much depth to his character, and Ceony only starts to fall in love after she learns more about him. No instalove, no drooling over his hotness considering he's pretty much average in everything aside from his eyes. The 12 year of age difference doesn't bother me a single bit, but that's my personal taste... and also because Emery doesn't feel like an old man despite his age.

And because I'm closer to his age than Ceony's. You didn't see that.

That aside, it'd have been nice if we get to learn about Ceony herself. Emery's life and past takes up a large portion of the story, but Ceony's only came out in a desperate moment that made it feel kind of rushed. This is only the first book in a trilogy though, maybe that's for the next ones to reveal. I didn't really like Lira though. I feel like she lacks depth as an antagonist, so hopefully this part gets better as the story moves along.

This book started out strong. The magic system is cool, and I feel like it had good potential. That being said, I got bored once Ceony goes to retrieve Emery???s heart. Witnessing his happiest memories, hopes, worst moments, and doubts was a cool way to explore Thane???s character but it felt like a shift away from the stuff that made me want to read the book in the first place. 
Ceony was an okay character. I kept forgetting that Ceony was 19 because she acted liked a young teen. It would have been a four with all that but then the romance thing started. She, a nineteen-year-old, likes Thane (her teacher who is in his thirties) and while she doesn???t actively encourage, Ceony doesn???t do anything  to stop. Thane does not initiate encounters or reciprocate the feelings in this book. At the end of the book, it???s implied that they???ll get together and have kids.
I???m not sure I want to read to the other ones due to this.

This is definitely a young adult story and if you come into it knowing that, it's a very enjoyable book. It's a story of a magical world without being a rip-off of Harry Potter. The story focuses more on characters than on the magic environment itself, which makes the beginning of the book somewhat jarring. More than once I double checked to see if there was a book that came before this that introduced things that I was expected to know before reading this book.

But you get drawn into the story quickly and it's a quick, enjoyable book. Being a young-adult story, it does lack the intensity and depth of a more advanced novel. Things definitely come a little too easily to the main character, and she is able to solve the crisis a tad too quickly.

But, like I said, if you come at it knowing what to expect, it's a very good story with great writing that describes the scenes of magic in ways that make them almost come to life.

The story has its fair share of violence, but there's almost nothing in the way of language or sex, which is refreshing for a young-adult novel. I would have no problem recommending this book to anyone, adult or teen.

I liked this book. It was a quick read. However, it could have been fleshed out a little bit more. The premise is interesting. I also liked that the hero of the story was a female who didn't let her lack of training stop her from trying to save the day. My only problem is, is that the book is set at the early 20th century but didn't read like a book from the early 20th century and the people didn't act like they were from that era. I understand that this is an alternate world with magic but it was a little odd to suddenly see dates in the 1800s and early 1900s. I am looking forward to seeing where this series is going next.