When your father dies and you suddenly find yourself inheriting a throne... and only have one month to figure out your magic before your coronation and hopefully surviving until then. MJ Rodriguez has spent her life living in hiding in the human world, she is half-encanto and the only child of King Vivencio of the Sirena Court. She is the rightful heir to the throne and when her father suddenly dies she is pulled back into the world of Biringan. She has to figure out her magic (something that she should have known by now) and only has one month to do so before her coronation... and that also means she has to go to royal magic school and deal with politics as well as trying to figure out the murder mystery surrounding her father's death. With everyone out for the throne and her place being challenged, she'll have to forge alliances and friendships to survive. She finds herself striking up an alliance with Sir Lucas of Sigbin Court, a boy surrounded in mystery and who has found a way to win her heart, and Nix, her newfound friend. This book was suppose to be young adult and MJ is around 17-18 but she read and felt as if she were 14-15. The story itself felt on the younger end of the spectrum, along the lines of Descendants (Disney). Unlike Descendants however, this one did not work for me. MJ has to find her magic in a month but doesn't really work towards trying to find it at all and it just ends up being there in the lat 10%of the book. The book hits all the tropes of : royal magic school, she's not like everyone else, mysterious boy who falls for her, mean pretty girl who is her enemy. Honestly it felt like Descendants without any of the charm or actual moving plot of Descendants. I really wanted to like this because I am always about supporting AAPI stories and characters, and I think this one was just too young for me. This is the first book in a duet and definitely ends with a cliffhanger. I think if you are a young reader around 12-14 and like Filipino mythology, this would be a perfect read for you.

*Thanks Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group, G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*