“Fire wants to burn
Water wants to flow
Air wants to rise
Earth wants to bind
Chaos wants to devour
Cal wants to live”
Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.
Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail.
All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.
So he tries his best to do his worst – and fails at failing.
Now the Magisterium awaits him. It’s a place that’s both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future. The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . .
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I have been cured of my massive reading slump! Thanks to this book that brought back the joy I felt when I first read Harry Potter!
We follow the story of Callum Hunt, a regular old 12-year-old kid with a messed up leg. He has pretty much been an outcast at his school, because of his overall strangeness and snarky remarks. He is special though, his dad is a mage and so was his mom…but Call’s dad wants him to flunk the mage school entrance exam.
Magisterium is a school for mages, where children begin at the age of 12 and continue their studies for a total of five years in order to become a graduated mage.
In an attempt to purposely fail the Magisterium entrance exam, Call ends up being accepted…to study with the most famous Master (professor) in the school. Image the shock Call and his dad got.
Call is forced to attend his first year at the Magisterium and while studying there, Call learns that Magisterium was not the horror-filled place his dad used to claim.
This book was amazing, I finished it in about 24 hours and it was magical. There is something about middle-grade reads that make everything so pure and I loved it. I think the main reason I was stuck in a massive slump because I did not want to read a Young Adult novel because it has its typical inserted romance.
Now, something I was totally aware of was how similar it was to Harry Potter, and while I saw some negative reviews about this on Goodreads….I felt that it’s similarity with Harry Potter was what got me hooked and in love.
There is a magic boarding school, mages in training, division of students, mysterious magic magicness, mythical creatures, cool magic-filled professors, and a mysterious Enemy.
While The Iron Trial does share those similarities with Harry Potter, it also had a powerful story that made it unique from HP. I do not want to give too much away, because it might ruin the story but the “chosen one” is not who you think it is, and Call as a dog (which is great).
A simple way to describe The Iron Trial (Magisterium Series) is:
the magical misadventures of preteen Voldermort, Human Labrador, rule breaking Hermoine and their pet demon puppy.
Did I mention that Call is disabled? Because he is, and the world of literature hardly ever had disabled characters and I think it is important that we have those characters…especially when they are children stories. While Call’s disability defines his way of life it does not define how he lives his life (AND IT IS FANTASTIC)..
I have never read anything by Holly Black and I read the first three books of Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instrument series about seven years ago. So I cannot compare how their writing has changed from this middle-grade book to their popular stuff. As a description-heavy lover, I was pleased with the detail in the story. Detail about the school, the people, and the scenery were nice, I would have liked a bit more (but that is just me).
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to relive the magic and giddiness gave on the first read. It is a series of five books and I have already started book two!
My Rating: 5/5