Book Review: The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Book: The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating:★ ★ ★ ☆☆

This book has been on my radar forever I think. Years at least. Finally got to it thanks to book club. This author is local and I've been to a few of her classes at conferences which has made me curious as to what sort of book she writes. So here's what I think.

This one is about a girl who has just graduated from a magic sort of high school and instead of getting picked to do the magic she wants to do, she ends up paired with the dude who does paper magic. Which I guess is boring and disappointing.

Well, so she decides to just deal with it and begins to learn some pretty cool folding techniques. (I decided I do paper magic at my work. Dang, but I fold a lot!!!) And she also decides that the magician teaching her is not so bad after all. In fact, he's kinda cool.

But then a bad lady from his past comes and steals his heart and she (our heroine) has to go rescue the heart and in the process, she finds herself immersed in this guy's life. And she learns so much about him that she, you know, decides she loves him!

So, I enjoyed the premise, even more than I thought I would. But the story fell a bit flat for me. I wanted the romance to be developed (cause it wasn't AT ALL developed) and there just to be MORE to it. I know the book club peeps didn't enjoy the learning what's in the guy's heart bit, but I thought that part was not bad. That was the main juice of the story... learning about the magician. It wasn't about the girl, but about him.

The writing itself was good, fine, lovely. Nothing to complain about there. Especially consider this is a first book. But that is also why I think it had a few problems. It was a really short book and I think we all agreed that had it been longer and meatier, we would have all enjoyed it more.