I honestly thought I would love this book given he Auth and the concept, but it was only mediocre. I don't have strong opinions either way.

Getting back at my prof by getting books for my essay out on inter-library loans that I don't have to return until after the final marks date :P

Liked the first book a lot when I was in high school, didn't enjoy this very much. Unsure if it's because it's not as good as the first or I plain would not like the first book anymore.

I wanted to give this the benefit of the doubt, but it's not very good. It's like meandering around in a field, with things occasionally happening. Alsberg was able to draw on elements from a lot of other media that she enjoyed, but she was not able to grasp what made them work in their original contexts. Time travel is a fun concept, it should not be introduced, readily accepted, and never adequately addressed. Most things were like that.

There was no narrative suspense. We find out things as the characters do, making the book very boring as they stumble around, waiting for the plot to happen. It's very easy to pick out points in the novel and think that if the readers had known this about the magic system at the start, there could have been a lot of suspense and narrative tension built from the fact of not knowing who this person would be without any massive changes to the story. Instead, we learn about the concept as the characters do, and have to take everything at face value.