The Rithmatist

Meh. A basically competent but forgettable take on the YA magical-school genre. The world-building was pretty solid (I can tell a lot of time was spent on working out the details of the alternate history and exactly how the magic works), but the clichéd thinness of the actual plot and characters, not to mention the mediocrity of the actual writing, made the whole thing deeply dissatisfying.

Here are some much better books I recommend instead: His Dark Materials, The Name of the Wind, Earthsea, Every Heart A Doorway.