I wanted to like this book, I did. Representation matters; I am usually all about diving into a fantasy based in folklore that's new to me, and tackles issues from a non-Eurocentric perspective. And this book, turning the school of life experience into a /literal/ school, should have been cool!...

Buuuuuuut this book was clearly not for me. I couldn't get past so many tiny gross details, like the floating corpse bombs that casually detonate scalps and teeth at people. Or even the mundane, realistic details, like the underage smokers. A book which celebrates delinquents as the most magically misunderstood minorities had me clutching my pearls. I know I know, that's the whole point: Gritty things happen in the real world, and kids have to be street smart or die, they don't have the privilege of hiding from danger... BUUUUUT all the same, I want MY kid to learn that it's not okay to run around playing with knives XD. I kept getting caught in my own head, like, "Our hero is 12, and her friends are close to that age, too. Would I want my son, when he turns 12, to be doing aaaaany of this?....NOPE!"

I'm also just mad from a literary standpoint. I didn't like that the book tried to "draw out the tension" by having characters in the know brush off our hero's concerns and queries. "You'll see..." No.... No, at some point our hero should have called out "Stranger Danger!" and walked away from this Ghibilian nightmare! And no no no as well, at some point you really do have to explain the mechanics of this world, or else why should I care about anything that's happening? "Congratulations, you've just learned that you have MAGIC. What kiiiinds of magic? Well, you can have a photographic memory. Or, turn invisible and hop through keyholes. Or, summon a swarm of stinging insects in a people-shaped sack a la Oogie Boogie and send them to sting your enemies to death! How do you gain these super powers? Stick your arm in a box of knives and wait for one to cut you! The knife chooses the wizard! PS, the wise adults charged with mentoring you young magical whippersnappers are going to drug and murder you...heroically, of course..."

And then, for all that the book doesn't explain its magical world well, and doesn't depict tweens I particularly want to get to know any better, THEN... the book takes a hard left turn into magical realism, and just gives us a soccer match, a teen social, and Burning Man, for 200 pages. What is this? Why am I reading this? What does this have to do with magic, or the magical serial killer our magical heroes are supposed to be going to magic school to learn how to defeat?!?! It's African Hogwarts with muggle Quidditch interrupting the quest for Voldemort!

This book was messy, boring, cringey, and ultimately whatever good it might have done by being diverse was undercut by those depictions being unflattering and un-charming.