Apprentice by Rachel E. Carter

She survived a trial year at the Academy, but that was just the easy part… 

Now sixteen-year-old Ryiah is an apprentice of Combat, her school’s most notorious faction of magic. When she finishes she will be a mage, but in order to do so she has to survive four years with a training master she hates and her old nemesis, Priscilla. To make matters worse the unwanted attraction Ry feels for her sometimes-friend-sometimes-rival Prince Darren is at an all time high – even though he is betrothed to the very girl she can’t stand. 

Really, the only bright spot to Ryiah’s new life is the time she spends with her friends, including an older apprentice named Ian, who she finds herself thinking about quite often. 

Just when things start to get comfortable they take a turn for the worse. An apprentice is killed in a rebel attack and several mages end up dead. Unwittingly, the apprentices find themselves in the midst of a budding unrest between Jerar and its northern neighbor, Caltoth. For Ryiah the impending conflict means many things, but as her apprenticeship draws to a close she finds her biggest problem at home. 

Unfortunately for her, Darren’s not going anywhere.  (Goodreads)

I literally went and bought this book as soon as I had finished the first instalment. I had to find out what happened next! I liked this book as a whole, but there were minor disappointments – namely the fact that it should have been split into a least two books!

I think I admired Ryiah more in this book than I did in the first – if that is even possible! She was faced with more problems and a teacher who despised her and was intent on making her life hell. She stuck with it, though. She tried to be the best that she could be, even if that wasn’t the best in her class – but the effort is all that matters. What bugged me about Ryiah is the way in which she started to treat the people around her. It was almost like she was better than they are and no amount of description could change that. I also hated the way in which she treated Ian. Especially because I feel like he was the better of the two!

I did begin to like Darren, and then I didn’t. This seemed to last throughout the book – moments when I hated him and moments when I liked him. I think it hung on when he was nice to Ryiah and when he was acting like a jerk. It also bugged me that no matter what Ryiah did, Darren was always better than she was in magic. I wanted her to win at least once – I was rooting for her, but Darren always bested her. I understand that there will always be people who are better than you, but this seems to be taking it to the extreme!!

I wanted more from this book! It took me a while to figure out that we were going through four years in one book and I was disappointed! I was enjoying the book so much that I wanted more from it – more action, events etc. I feel like this book could have easily been split into two books, if not three, which would have allowed room for more descriptions and world building. It would have allowed for more in general – which is what I wanted!

I was also a little annoyed to find typos and grammatical errors. I understand that this happens when reading ARCS, since it is not the finished version, but this book has been finished and released to the general public, aka me, I would expect not to find easy errors. I am not sure whether they would be found in a physical copy of the book, or if it is just the Kindle version, but it bugged me.

I really enjoyed this book and I was glued to it in general. I wish there was more from it, though! I gave this book 4/5 stars.