The Magic of Reason

Magic or Madness #1-3

by Justine Larbalestier

Reason Cansino isn't like other 15 year olds. For one thing, she's spent most of her life in the Australian Outback on the run from grandmother Esmeralda - a real life witch. For another, Reason got her ame because her mother, Sarafina, like it better than Logic or Rationality or Intellect - all good words representing the calm, ordered certainty that opposed Esmeralda's world. Suddenly Magic is real... and Reason is Magic! 566 Pages.

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy

570 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Justine Larbalestier is an Australian young-adult fiction author. She is best known for the Magic or Madness trilogy: Magic or Madness, Magic Lessons and the newly released Magic's Child. She also wrote one adult non-fiction book, the Hugo-nominated The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction (Best Related Book, 2003), and edited another, Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century.

Her surname has been pronounced in several different ways, but the FAQ on her website says that Lar-bal-est-ee-air is correct:

Q: How do you pronounce your surname? A: Lar-bal-est-ee-air. It can also be pronounced Lar-bal-est-ee-ay or Lar-bal-est-ee-er. Those are all fine by me. Friends at school used to pronounce it: Lavaworm. I have to really like you to let you get away with that one, but.

Larbalestier was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. She now alternates living between Sydney and New York City.

In 2001, Justine married fellow author Scott Westerfeld.

Reviews

[Barry Morris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am going to say that The Magic of Reason is a cute book, and that is going to sound more condescending than it should. It is however the right term for the book. It is a nice tale that takes off right from the beginning. It has young fun characters and enough questions about who is what that your curiosity is fanned. On the upside, you will know within the first twenty or so pages whether you want to read on. On the down side, the story never truly rises to a level of art. I won't give anything away. I will just say pick it up in a library and read a few pages. If it grabs you, check it our or buy it. If you do, you will enjoy it; if you don't you won't have missed out on that much.

[Harry Brake · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is always this underlying issue of magic as a controlling force among the characters of all the series with reason involved. I do appreciate that Reason never becomes glamorized of Hollywood stereotyped through the reading of these three texts. I found it always easy to go back and pick up want to know what would happen next, as well as thinking about the chain of events that were occurring. I was a little disappointed in seeing the end , well, end so abruptly, I wanted a deeper conclusion, but by the time we make it to the end, I don't think we realize how much we have worked through as a reader! I know this is typical, I just struggled with the sections where Tom questioned over and over, (so did Jay-Tee) when they would make out next - lol I think this is perfectly natural, however, it seemed to interrupt my flow of the events up to this point.

I so appreciate Ms. Larbabestier's boldness, courage, and straightforwardness in all her writing up to this point. Having recently been honored with her as a guest at the American School Foundation in Mexico she, she went on to inspire so many young writers and to stand up for women in so many areas. This comes out in her characters as well as in a chain of events throughout the Reason series. I loved that this was not hard at all to dive into and be captured with the details!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ii loved this book! It's an omnibus edition of the Magic or Madness Trilogy, and I found it very enjoyable. I was truly sorry to see this one end and went looking for more books by this author, but sadly, I didn't find any more about Reason.

[Shanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like a 3.5. I enjoyed reading it.

[Leah Reyes-Ramos]

Very enjoyable. Read as quenchingly as dare I say the Twilight saga. Would love to see as a movie.

[Humble]

These books kind of unsettled me. I don't remember if that was good or bad.