An Unkindness of Magicians

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I read this book for the first time during the height of quarantine, and I absolutely loved it then, and even after a reread I love it now. I was lucky enough to be granted access to an e-ARC of the next book in the duology, so a reread was definitely in order. I am so glad that this book stands up even after reading it a second time. (Though, to be fair, I had forgotten a great deal of it. Oops.) ANYWAY — if you like urban fantasies with heavy magic use, you'll probably like this one. There's a slight mystery involved, too, but it's very obvious, in my opinion, what the solution to the mystery is.

The world at the heart of this book is a harsh, cruel one. Magicians have magic, but they aren't nice or helpful with magic. In order to pick the next leader of the magical world, there's a ruthless competition of duels. At first, they're non-mortal, but past a certain point it's expected that one person in the duel won't walk away. The magic that Kat Howard weaves in these duels is so unique and interesting. Nothing was what I expected it to be, and I really loved watching our main character fight in these duels. Speaking of our main character, Sydney has magic. A lot of magic. She's overpowered compared to everyone else in the book, but there is an in-world reason for it, thankfully. The characters she chooses to align herself with are all interesting — Ian, who has chosen to step away from his House, Laurent, who Sydney is fighting for, and Madison, her barely magical lawyer-best-friend. There are some nasties, too, but I don't want to spoil any of those reveals for you!

My one beef with this book is that the end comes up way too suddenly. You think you've got another couple hundred pages before things start to resolve, but nope. It just hits you over the head with it. Things are resolved, but it's a sudden shift. There's no emotional breaking point. Sydney makes a decision off page and just goes with it. I wish we had seen more of her emotional trauma, honestly. I wish we had seen her hit that tipping point. But ultimately, even that doesn't hurt my enjoyment of this book. I think An Unkindness of Magicians was really overlooked for a long time. I hope that changes with the release of A Sleight of Shadows. Please check this series out!