Larbalestier, Justine - Magic's Child

[oyceter]

Spoilers for all three books

It's been a while since I've read the first two books, so it took me a while to get into this one. The strangest thing was reading Reason's note that it had only been two weeks since she'd discovered that magic was real. Wow! Fast! For some reason, I had seen the two books as taking place over a longer period of time, probably just because of all the action and the place-hopping.

I think the ending of the trilogy just didn't really work for me; most of the parts that I liked about the first book ended up not being much in the third at all (namely: Reason and Esmerelda's relationship). I think I was expecting less action and more character stuff; the parts I liked best about this book were Jay-Tee and Tom discovering kissing. I was squicked by the Danny-Reason sex, particularly the pregnancy, but not by the Jay-Tee-Tom kissing, largely because no three-year age difference! It's not that much out of college, but in high school, it feels like a huuuge gap.

And given that I tend to like character relationships over worldbuilding, I was much less interested in the world of Cansino magic that Reason was seeing, especially since it meant Reason growing more and more disconnected from the world.

Oh, also, am glad to know that it was Raul Cansino mostly manipulating Danny and Reason hooking up! And I loved Danny's reaction to Jay-Tee and Tom. And I liked that Reason gave up her magic and destroyed the Cansino magic but that Tom chose his own magic; like Reason, I generally think magic is probably a bad and/or highly seductive thing, but it makes the ending more gray.

But yeah. I think I would have liked it more if there hadn't been the entire Reason-turns-inhuman plot.

Links:
- cyphomandra's review
- minnow1212's review
- keilexandra's review

Comments

[keilexandra]

I had very different reactions, which I can't remember off the top of my head. Thank goodness for booklogs. I really liked the Reason-turns-inhuman plot, because it's pretty original for YA. I'm usually more for non-infodump worldbuilding and plot over characters, though, unless I fall in love (see: Dianora of Kay's TIGANA).

[oyceter]

Oooh, thanks for the link!

I can like worldbuilding and plot over character (see: Westerfeld!) but I find I generally tend to gravitate toward character. And good points on the teen pregnancy and morality thing, which I did like, no matter how squicked out I was personally ;).