This book, the first in a trilogy, has a great premise: the high price of magic...and the high price of not using magic. It's very cool.
Reason Cansino has spent her entire life on the run with her mother, Sarafina. At the age of 12, Sarafina ran away from her mother, Esmeralda, who's a witch. Ever since then, Sarafina's been in total denial of magic's existence (hence her choice of a name for her daughter), terrified of her mother, and terrified of her mother getting control of her daughter. Esmeralda has legal custody of Reason, but they've managed to avoid her for most of fifteen years...until Sarafina finally goes completely insane and they're discovered.
As the novel starts, Reason's finally going to live with her "evil grandmother" and is already planning her escape. The escape is held off a bit when she meets her neighbor Tom, another teenager who's a kickass fashion designer and is very close with "Mere" (i.e. Esmeralda). Tom is similarly intrigued by Reason, and surprised she doesn't know more about her family than she does. However, he's not allowed to tell her, nor can he explain why he's not surprised to hear that her mother went crazy, since his already has.
Reason does end up escaping her grandmother...but not in a way she expected to. She ends up in another world altogether and is rescued by another girl, Jay-Tee, who's hiding some unpleasant secrets about the guy that's putting her up in her apartment. By the end of the book, a family blowout is brewing...
This book gets three and a half stars. By rights it should be four, but I can't explain why without going into vague spoilage below. At any rate, I'll be jumping on the other two books in the upcoming trilogy as soon as they come out, though I hope I don't have to wait for UPS all day long to deliver them again!
The only reason this isn't a four-star book, which it really should be, is that I continually found myself frustrated by the pace of the revealing of how magic really works. It was a bit reminscent of Harry Potter 6 in that way, and I wish someone had blabbed at least the big main detail (hint: the title) midway through the book to Reason. I know it was supposed to only be revealed at the end, but that really does drag out. And yet in a way one can pretty much figure out already how things are likely to go, so dragging out the "how it really works" bit by making all characters either forbidden to tell Reason how things work or trying to get something out of her first frustrated me. She's not a naive character, so leaving her "naive" was a major stretch to me. I wish I could overlook that, but dammit, I just can't.
More in-depth spoiler discussion will go below...
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
At any rate, I think the "magic or madness" premise is a really good one. What a horrible choice if one's born with magic- use it and die really, really young, or don't use it and go insane. Plus there's the whole "vampiric" aspect of it. Plus I like the opposing forces between Reason's grandparents- one guy that everyone knows is bad versus a woman Reason's always been told is bad (and found evidence proving), but Tom finds trustworthy. Who the hell do you choose? Reason makes the best decision she can, but who knows how it will play out?
And the cliffhanger ending...oooh.
Comments