Zodiac Academy: The Awakening

Took all my critical thinking and morals, wrapped them in a shiny box and launched them out the window. (Recommended course of action before starting this)

I loved that the magic system took exactly 2 brain cells to understand, so it was really just a fun time with no effort.

Yes this is addicting and yes i’m going to immediately jump into the next one.

3.5 Stars

2024 Reflection Time: My feelings are so conflicted. It wasn't as awful as I first remembered but it wasn't great either. Dunno. Need time to think. Leaving my original review up for transparency and also because it's iconic as fuck.

2022 Review:

Buddy read with Kayla!

I normally don't rate books that I don't finish but this completely deserves it. This was extremely disappointing. But honestly, I went in expecting something like this.

This book was written by two popular sixteen year-old parents-are-Republican preppy-cheerleader-type girls and you can't convince me otherwise. I think that the authors's goal here was to get me to never say another bad thing about Michael Waldron or Chris Chibnall's writing ever again (and it nearly worked). It's cringy, it's poorly-written, and it's a shitty Harry Potter/Winx Club/Victorious fanfiction. With typos and grammatical errors galore, I completely understand why this was self-published. If I was a publisher and was offered this, I would laugh in their faces and kick their asses to the curb. This read like something I would find in the depths of thirteen year-old me's Wattpad library. It literally has me wondering how this series is so popular.

I have been told by many (including my bookish group chat friends who have been pestering me to read this for weeks) that this series gets better in later books. However, I would rather stab myself multiple times than force myself to read any more of this. Honestly I wanted to get a bit further in this book since it was my first buddy read but I just couldn't continue torturing myself. Sorry to my friends who like toxic aLpHa males but I'm done. I'm so fucking done. Cope.

And the true queen of Solaria is my girl Stella thank you very much.

TL;DR this one should've stayed in the Wattpad drafts besties.

Original Rating: 1 Star

Edit: I found this on YouTube and it's my new favorite video on the internet. <3

I like the world that this is set in. I think the magic etc is interesting. However, nothing happened in this book except for realllllly bad dialogue and exposition. I think the whole 400 pages took place over a week? Two weeks? I'm not sure.

I will likely read this whole series in a similar way that I read 50 shades. Which is to say with equal horror and enjoyment.