Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch

Magisterium

by Jeff Hirsch

In the twenty-second century Glennora Morgan's father has been working on a project which will allow him to penetrate the Rift and retrieve Glennora's mother; but now that he has suceeded the Authority is suddenly trying to kill them both, and Glennora and her friend Kevin must flee into the Rift to escape them.

Reviewed by jnikkir on

2 of 5 stars

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I just received this book courtesy of Scholastic and the Goodreads giveaway! Super excited to read it.

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I was SOOOOO happy about winning this book. I got it in the mail and it was so pretty and exciting-sounding and I was going to love it and gush about it and add it to my favorites shelf.

Yeah, no.

All I can think is, it should have been better.

On the surface, it sounds great: The world in Magisterium is divided, one side based on technology and the other on magic. -Awesome!- Book-smart Glenn, who has been struggling with her mysterious-Project-obsessed father, has to deal with first her father's arrest, and then being thrown into this other, magic-based world alongside her best-friend-but-wants-to-be-more, Kevin. -Conflict, sounds promising!- There is a pretty interesting magic system, cool fantastical creatures, ghosts, an evil ruler who needs to be toppled, etc, etc. -Yes, all good!-

This should have worked, right? I mean, it's got so many things going for it. But it just didn't.

I think the reason for this, at least for me, is that the characters felt flat. I couldn't bring myself to care about them. I didn't care if Kevin and Glenn actually got together, because I didn't feel any chemistry there. Yeah, the situation with losing her mom when she was six, and being raised by a preoccupied/obsessed father, kind of sucks. But when that eventually gets resolved, why didn't I feel anything?

One word jumps out at me when I consider how I feel about this book: disconnected. I didn't hate it, I just didn't enjoy reading it because I wasn't drawn into the world(s) or into the lives/motivations/feelings/hardships of the characters. Even though it has a framework that should work, there's not enough there to demand my emotional investment.


And this is my least favorite feeling when finishing a book - apathy. I wanted to love it; I'd settle for being able to find reasons for hating it; but it goes solidly in the "I feel nothing" category.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 28 November, 2012: Finished reading
  • 28 November, 2012: Reviewed