Review: Could have been done better
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2014
I have just finished reading the first two books in this series and overall I enjoyed them both. I am interested in finding out what happens next, so will most likely purchase book three.Emily's story was interesting and generally well written and the different world piqued my interest. However, I had several issues with the storyline/writing style which annoyed me from time to time. The two biggest were the consistent comparisons to H.P. and Emily's decisions that she needed to 'improve' her new world by introducing all sorts of new ways of doing things without bothering to consider consequences - or need.Firstly the H.P. thing. I have often been annoyed by reviews that consistently compare new books to extremely famous ones such as H.P. as if these more famous books were the be all and end all of the genre. However, I found the H.P. references in this book just as annoying, and extremely repetitive. If Emily has such in depth knowledge about the world of H.P. no doubt she has read other fantasy etc books as well. Try referencing them too if you have to reference anything.Secondly Emily's approach to her new world. I found the attitude she seemed to have that she had a right to change this medieval style world into something more closely resembling Earth to be extremely arrogant. Sure, there are no doubt things that I would also want to change if I was in her position, but her motives (at least at first) seemed to be greed and laziness. There was a line in one of the books (I forget which) about the culture of her new world being 'wrong' which struck me as being extremely arrogant and closed minded. She also seemed to look down on the society as a whole just because they were not as technologically advanced as Earth.I would have like to learn more about school life and lessons - I felt that was a little glossed over and will hope for better for the next school year.For those who are sticklers for spelling and grammar, there are editing issues with this book, which did become a little annoying. Although I have to admit that when Emily shows concern over possible 'addition' I laughed myself silly. You will recognise the line.Despite my issues with this book it is a good light read, but if you want a truly good 'Magic School' story then I suggest you try V. St Claire's 'Broken Prism' series.