Will I love The Paper Magician?

Like many fantasy novels, The Paper Magician revolves around a character who feels small, lost, and powerless.

Although Ceony Twill desperately wants metal magic, she gets assigned to paper and decides to make the most of it. Since I’m half-Japanese, I immediately thought “origami!” when I read about the folding magic. It is the first book in a trilogy and I found the story to be a light, fast read.

Holmberg’s Victorian, gas-lamp world feels familiar, and though I found the characters a little thin (paper joke intended!), I enjoyed Ceony’s adventure. My favorite characters were two of the paper… show more.

It’s in my Rereads Club, what I return to when I need to escape to a fantastical yet familiar world. This is also the driving force behind my love for the genre. 

Set in an alternate-history Edwardian London where magic is something you specialize in like any other skill, Ceony’s arc was the first time I read about what happens after one leaves magic-school. And the directions a post-graduate magician can head in when they’re assigned something that, at first, appears to ruin their dreams, but instead opens up new opportunities and drives home why you should take a… show more.