4 stars
~
A book about quidditch? That calls JKR out on all her BS? COUNT ME IN!
This book was everything I hoped! A bit too much self-absorbed teen angsty-ness for my taste, and I would have loved to see a little more of the blooming romance and had that storyline a bit more developed, but still—so good.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Ellen, she was a little too self-absorbed and the way she addressed activism and progressivism often felt self-righteous to me. However, she was a really well developed, strong character. Honestly, every character in this book was so well written and well rounded.
There was this one chapter (maybe two) where Ellen and Karey kept calling other characters out for ableism… but the things they were calling out weren’t ableist. It kind of felt like the mentions were thrown in there to make up for the lack of disabled characters or like the author was going “oh look how progressive I am”. It felt shallow and for show because it literally wasn’t ableism—and that’s coming from a disabled person.
But! I honestly can’t get over those characters! Even the characters I hated were so freaking impressively written. As a writer, I aspire to be that good at writing characters. The plot and pacing was also really well done and I was absorbed from page one. It was such a well crafted book and Anna Meriano has serious talent and skill.
The only things I didn’t like were those awkward comments about ableism and things like the angst and lack of romance which are personal taste.
I 100% recommend this to any Potterhead who loves the wizarding world but is… so done with the fool who wrote Harry Potter