The Iron Trial (Magisterium, #1) in The Not-So Austen Bookclub

Sep 07, 2013 Bree marked it as to-read · review of another edition

First thing I saw.
Cassandra Clare is one of the authors.
NO THINKING NESSESSARY!
Clicked that to-read button like my iPad was on fire.
Anything by Cassandra, ya know its going to be legendary!
This release date, however, is not acceptable.
At. All.
WHY YOU DO THIS PUBLISHING COMPANIES? JUST WHY?!
Maybe it's because the authors haven't fully finished it yet?....
IN THAT CASE GET CRACKING AND SPILL FORTH YOUR AMAZING TALENT AND WORD WEAVING GENIUS ...more

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Mar 28, 2014 Miss Clark rated it liked it

Shelves: adventure, mg, modern-presentday, fairytale-fantasy-sci-fi-mythology

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 2.5 - 3 stars

The description is fairly accurate! Yeah. This is normal modern-day boy* with no friends and a distant-if-loving father gets sent to magic school to learn to control his magic powers. His dad has warned him all his life about how evil and dangerous the wizarding world is and tells him to fail the entrance test. Without even really trying, Call does spectacularly poorly, but is still chosen to be the apprentice of the highest ranked magister. Gets stuck with know-it-all Tamara from a 2.5 - 3 stars

The description is fairly accurate! Yeah. This is normal modern-day boy* with no friends and a distant-if-loving father gets sent to magic school to learn to control his magic powers. His dad has warned him all his life about how evil and dangerous the wizarding world is and tells him to fail the entrance test. Without even really trying, Call does spectacularly poorly, but is still chosen to be the apprentice of the highest ranked magister. Gets stuck with know-it-all Tamara from a powerful magical family and golden boy Aaron with is talented and friendly. Call himself is a gloomy little pessimist who just wants to go home.

*This boy also had his leg shattered as a baby and dozens of surgeries later still is plagued by pain, restrictions upon his activities and dislikes allowing the scarred limb to be seen. This injury and the way that it has shaped his life and personality was genuinely my favorite facet of Call's character.

It was upon reading page fifty-eight that I assumed that somehow Call was a Choas-ridden, but different somehow. I figured out not long after that Aaron was a makar - he has all the hallmarks of a chosen one. He is good and kind, a practical orphan, had a difficult childhood, and is in a trio of friends.

However, I distinctly did not expect that Call was in fact Constantine, the dreaded Enemy of Death himself! Not even the dad's cryptic warning clued me in, although it really should have.

So, you have the soul of Constantine in the body of the newborn Hunt child. They claim that Constantine's soul evicted the Hunt child's soul and sent it tetherless into the world. How would they really know since no one else had done this before?

Regardless, now that Call knows who he is, will he choose Constantine's path again? Will he remember Constantine's life and choices? What makes us who we are? Our memories? Our past? Or is it our choices, here and now? And is there anything of the Hunt baby's soul remaining?

My favorite scene was Call offering to be Aaron's counterweight. Considering the only aspect that kept me reading was the trio of Aaron, Tamara, and Call becoming friends, the prospect of the boys (and Tamara too) fighting, lying and becoming mortal enemies is not too appealing.

I liked that the trio all grow in different ways throughout the book.

The characterization of all secondary characters from Celia/Luna to Jasper/Draco, etc. was very light. The magic system was woefully underdeveloped. Either you are a wizard or not and their power is derived from the elements and if they draw too deeply on an element they can be overtaken and become an elemental. Does this mean that all elementals were once human?

I never got the feeling of depth to the world, that weight of history that grounds a fantasy or secondary world.

It was better than I expected from some of the reviews that I had run across, but not very strong. I'll have to see how things progress in book two. Five books seems like a bit much for the scope of this story... ...more

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