dbguide2's Reviews (863)

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this as much as I hoped to. It had a really cool concept but didn’t manage to meet my expectations. I liked the graphics, which made for a quick read. The facial expressions were well-drawn, which made me like it more and it easier to read the book faster.

I liked the characters. I liked the approach that they went in with the book. You have your seemingly standard magic boarding school and then it turns out to have that trope be flipped. That part of the story I did enjoy. Something I always really like seeing is when the panels in graphic novels seem like they’re moving. I’ve had instances where the characters looked wooden. Their expressions were still and the panels don’t flow into each other nicely. Luckily this wasn’t the case with The Black Mage. Even though I wasn’t the biggest fan, at least I liked reading it. 

Normally I’m not a fan of constant pov changes – and when they’re in the same chapter – but I didn’t find that so annoying here? Plus they’re all first person pov and didn’t annoy me – which was another win as I often find them annoying. Big kudos to the two authors for managing to pull that off!

Of course when you have an ensemble group it could become difficult to differentiate between their voices and personalities but that didn’t seem to be the issues here. All the povs were in first person yet I never really got confused as to whose pov I was reading.

I already knew The Ghost Gang from the previous book but I liked how they took the events from it and made sure it affected them in this book. That they wouldn’t forget them (hard to, considering what they’d been through) and it’s a good reminder that trauma shows itself in many ways and it’s a difficult thing to navigate.

The characters improved in this book and I liked seeing that. Looking back at my review for the first book I said Chrissy was my favourite and Chase, my least. I liked Chase much better this turn around! I said in Horror Hotel that he felt like cared more about the fame and the group. And that I hoped that he would change that in the future. That definitely was the case here! He not only improved as a character (in my eyes); he cared more about the group than their fame (current and any they could get in the future). I liked him more for that. I think for this book Emma and Kiki also improved as characters for me. Actually for this book none of them stood out as a clear favourite? As I liked all of them really well.

I didn’t really like Billie, Kiki’s mom. Honestly, I didn’t really understand why she was on the ship with them. I warmed up to her late into the book but I could’ve done without her.

I didn’t like the whole subplot of the mummy. I thought it was just pushed in there when maybe the editors thought there wasn’t enough tension and another subplot needed to be added. We could’ve had another book with the cursed mummy plot instead of just shoving it into here and not giving it enough space to fully spread its wings.

I liked the other bits of the plots. A ghost haunting of the ship and “oh there’s a lady in white wandering the ship” – I loved that. I love haunting stories and they don’t get old to me – that is basically what Horror Hotel was too. The Ghost Gang made sure to be respectful to the story, which was good, and solving it was important not only for their Youtube channel.

Even though I didn’t like the Paranormal Patrol (also the name is stupid), I did like what they brought to the table. The difference between the two groups, what they both wanted from solving the mystery. How they treated the mystery – respect versus fame. Also how the internet/Hollywood wanted to see them. Like the Ghost Gang are teenagers, why would you push them to sex it up? They’re not on Riverdale or Euphoria (most certainly as those teens are played by near 30 year olds).

 There were so many unnecessary sentences and details and I wasn’t a fan of them. For me when writers use them they’re trying to show how good of a writer they are but it rarely works. I also didn’t like any of the characters, their personalities, their dialogue – all played a part in my reason to dnf. 

The fact that I basically had.. No clue where or what Elias and Laia were doing half the time should show you (and me) something. I do want to carry on because I want to see what’s next but not right away. And hoping that changing formats will help. I think Helene might be my favourite out of the three main characters. Though that’s like I can mostly tolerate her/she’s my least liked out of the three. I do want to see where she goes with her magic and I want to see her get better as a character (meaning, actually see servants as people).

Honestly, there’s not much I can say nicely about Elias. He is… a simp, in the sense that he met Laia and then fell in love her with like a week or so later. He’s all “I love you so so much. You’re my everything” and I’m sitting there like “why though? I don’t believe it!” Give me BELIEVABLE ROMANCE FROM BOTH OF YOU. Laia, I think, is improving a but. That’s all. I wanted her to delve deeper into herself and learn more about what she could do and that wasn’t really done in this book. But, honestly, as she was with Elias I half paid attention to her because he kept annoying me.   
 
Something that annoyed me is that I wasn’t sure how much of a timeline we’re working with in this book? Ember had the whole month timeline with Laia’s brother and all but this with moving between the school and Laia and Elias – no clue. I’m not good with time in real life, much less in books, and certainly not when the book annoys me.

I think the big thing annoyed me is that I went into this series thinking there would be a lot of magic involved. Maybe all three main characters would have magic. Or just one. A character deals with a magic-heavy sub-plot – something along those lines. I don’t think that a lot of people who’ve read this series have really spoken about how much magic is in this series, so maybe I just misread a lot somewhere. I just know that when I sat down to read the first book, I was expecting a lot of magic involved. And I didn’t get that. So I think that made me dislike it more. I’m a big magic in fantasy fan so I do get sad if it’s not there and I was thinking it would be. 

Its not capturing my attentions 

 It was one of those reads where I just couldn’t get into it. Those books where you start and you know that you’re either going to stop reading it or have a really bad time finishing it. I also didn’t like either point of view so I chose to stop reading early on. 

I saw myself a lot in Logan and Rosemary. Their personalities, their ADHD traits (which can and do differ for a lot of ADHDers), how they saw themselves/their traits. I loved how Logan was brash and how she put this air of not caring about what others thought of her – when really, she did. And then Rosemary with her over-preparedness, making sure every little thing is absolutely perfect. Like, wow, Cochrun, how dare you see into my heart like that. But also thank you very much and I love you a lot.

If I begin to think too much about Joe I might start crying and not be able to finish the review. He was my favourite, and such a fun character. He could quite easily have you laughing a ton the one sentence and in the next sentence have you near crying. I felt for him and his story because it is such a difficult time of your life – when you’re nearing the end. You might think you didn’t do everything, get to know the right people. Have regrets, things you’ll miss doing. However, Joe didn’t think of those throughout the book. He focused on what was good in his life, what he enjoyed doing, what mattered for him. 

Most of the plot is them travelling and sight-seeing (which was very cute and funny) but it’s also a lot about Rosemary and Logan trying to come to grips with Joe’s death. He’s a big part of their lives and not having him physically there anymore – it’s a big adjustment for them. And myself too because I was hoping throughout the entirety of me reading the book that he would stay alive.

This wasn’t exactly a natural childhood-friends-to-lovers, which is why I liked it all the better. Give me a romance that takes a while to get there, one that’s not straightforward, one that takes a while to get to. But most importantly, show me a love that is real. Logan and Rosemary absolutely had that. Even when they were fighting I was thinking “I can’t wait to get to when you admit you like/love each other” and still I didn’t want to skip a single page because I wanted to see all the steps and stages they had to take.