The Paper Magician

Author:Charlie N. Holmberg Published: September, 1st 2014 by 47North Series: The Paper Magician Trilogy #1 Length: 224 pages Genre: YA fantasy ISBN:9781477823835)  Source: AmazonCeony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she's bonded to paper, that will be her only magic... forever.Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined — animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.An Excisioner — a practitioner of dark, flesh magic — invades the cottage and rips Thane's heart from his chest. To save her teacher's life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane's still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.The story revolves around Ceony Twill and her absolute distaste for the magic that she is assigned too. The setting of the story begins somewhere on the outskirts of London, England where she is being shown to the door of the man who will be teaching her paper magic. I noticed very quickly in the beginning that the writer choose to harp over and over on the fact that paper magic was not something the protagonist had any resolve to do. In her mind it was just short of a death sentence, but he talked about it so much that even after finishing the book I have very little care for paper magic myself. It also make the first five chapters incredibly hard get through. In saying that the story definitely starts to pick up after Magician Thane is attacked and Ceony goes after the heart thief. I will say that the wording used throughout the book is definitely easy to follow while still providing a challenge to the more advanced reader. If I had to pick one line that really sums up the book it would be “What about my mistakes? I think about them, too, but where would I be if I thought of nothing else? What sort of person would I be if I drowned in them?” The two major protagonist both carry dark secrets with them and has an affect on how they choose to interact with others and each other.As I approached the end of this book I was left wanting. There was a lot of filler material that I felt could have been left out and instead replaced with something else. There was a lot of opportunity to develop Ceony which I felt was not done very well. The story was very dry and repetitive at times which really disappointed me because I felt that there was so much potential for this book to really take off. I was happy with how the book ended because it definitely set the sequel up to be very engaging. I hope that it does not disappoint. It is definitely worth a read if you can forge through the dry material and repetition.I rated this book a 3/5. The ending really saved it.