Callum Hunt’s summer break isn’t like other kids’. His closest companion is a Chaos-ridden wolf, Havoc. His father suspects him of being secretly evil. And, of course, most kids aren’t heading back to the magical world of the Magisterium in the fall.
It’s not easy for Call . . . and it gets even harder after he checks out his basement and discovers that his dad might be trying to destroy both him and Havoc.
Call escapes to the Magisterium — but things only intensify there. The Alkahest — a copper gauntlet capable of separating certain magicians from their magic — has been stolen. And in their search to discover the culprit, Call and his friends Aaron and Tamara awaken the attention of some very dangerous foes — and get closer to an even more dangerous truth.
As the mysteries of the Magisterium deepen and widen, bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare take readers on an extraordinary journey through one boy’s conflict — and a whole world’s fate. (Goodreads)
I have had this on my TBR for over a year – ever since I read the first book in this series. I really enjoyed the first book (looking back on my review) and I knew at the time that the second book was something I wanted straight away. So, to say that I DNF’ed this book is disappointing. I was expecting a lot more than what I was given
This book was pretty much a mash up of all the Harry Potter books. We have our Harry, Hermione and Ron in Callum, Aaron and Tamara and Draco in the form of Jasper. Voldemort is played by a character called Constantine Madden – who, it turns out, placed his soul in the body of Callum. Surprise surprise. Our loved Hedwig is now a chaos ridden wolf called Havoc. The philosophers stone is an Alkahest. Callum even runs away from home after his dad nearly almost pulled a Vernon and Petunia Dursley in the sense that he wanted to lock him in the basement – granted, the Dursleys didn’t want to experiment on Harry… just lock him up. The Magisterium is Hogwarts and of course Hogwarts the Magisterium is Harry’s Callums home. Do you see where I am going with this? Oh, I almost forgot, they all run off to save Sirius Callum’s dad, who pulled a Snape and stole the Alkahest from Gringotts the Collegium. Yeah… it’s a rip off to say the least!!
What made it worse was the fact that I felt no connection whatsoever to the characters in any sense. In fact, they bugged me to death and I found them extremely boring! If I could have, I would have slapped all of them … multiple times! Ron Callum was bugging me with his evil overlord rubbish, whilst Harry Aaron and Hermione Tamara bugged me even more! I felt like this book was written for children in the middle school rather than a young adult book!
I don’t think it really helped that I haven’t read the first book in this series since I first read it over a year ago. Obviously I have read a lot of books in the time between then and now and I think I have just lost the plot in the sense that I can’t remember really what happened in the first book anymore. I felt confused. I think the first book is definitely worth a reread if you really want to read this book!!
I was really disappointed that I was given a knock off of my childhood! I expected more from this book and in that sense, the authors just didn’t deliver! I gave this book 1/5 stars.
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