Book Review: School of Nine (Mythic Academy Collection)
School of Nine (Mythic Academy Collection) by Amanda Marin
4 stars
Category: YA
Note: I read this as included in the Academy of Magic anthology.
Summary: Bianca is training how to use her muse powers at Brightling Academy for Muses. The headmistress points out to her that she is currently set to fail because her grade in Poise and Charm class is pulling her GPA down. As extra credit they assign Sebastian to her the first boy student at the school, to help show him around and help him fit in. Bianca and her best friend/roommate have also recently noticed the number of muses seems to be declining, movies and music has become repetitive, and a famous painting was recently stolen, all things mentioned as signs on Clio’s lost scroll that Bianca’s grandmother translated, heralding the end of imagination and goodness in the world.
Comments: The writing in this is excellent. It fully kept my attention with the mystery of what was happening to the magic in their world, and the romance between Bianca and Sebastian and just what was he hiding. I did love Sebastian for his nervousness as a new student. Bianca came across as rather bland in personality. There wasn’t anything that really stood out about her, making her a rather generic narrator. I did like that the author used a supernatural type (muse) that really isn’t used much in paranormal books these days, keeping it fresh and inventing how they used their magic in the modern world. It made a nice change from all of the vampire academy, werewolf academy, monster slayer academy, angel academy, fairy tale academy, and wizarding academy books on the market these days. I also tend to grade these academy books on how magical the school is, and if imagination was actually put into making the classes different. And in this one, the school was basically a Victorian girls’ finishing school, complete with classes in poise and charm, etiquette, dancing, and wearing long dresses and heels. The other problem is that Bianca, our main character mostly just watches the events unfold. Her purpose is mainly to lay out all of the events, and tell us the parallels and put the pieces together, but she doesn’t really take part until near the end of the book. She only uses her muse powers maybe once in the book, in the first chapter. Kash is a lot more active than Bianca.
4 stars
Category: YA
Note: I read this as included in the Academy of Magic anthology.
Summary: Bianca is training how to use her muse powers at Brightling Academy for Muses. The headmistress points out to her that she is currently set to fail because her grade in Poise and Charm class is pulling her GPA down. As extra credit they assign Sebastian to her the first boy student at the school, to help show him around and help him fit in. Bianca and her best friend/roommate have also recently noticed the number of muses seems to be declining, movies and music has become repetitive, and a famous painting was recently stolen, all things mentioned as signs on Clio’s lost scroll that Bianca’s grandmother translated, heralding the end of imagination and goodness in the world.
Comments: The writing in this is excellent. It fully kept my attention with the mystery of what was happening to the magic in their world, and the romance between Bianca and Sebastian and just what was he hiding. I did love Sebastian for his nervousness as a new student. Bianca came across as rather bland in personality. There wasn’t anything that really stood out about her, making her a rather generic narrator. I did like that the author used a supernatural type (muse) that really isn’t used much in paranormal books these days, keeping it fresh and inventing how they used their magic in the modern world. It made a nice change from all of the vampire academy, werewolf academy, monster slayer academy, angel academy, fairy tale academy, and wizarding academy books on the market these days. I also tend to grade these academy books on how magical the school is, and if imagination was actually put into making the classes different. And in this one, the school was basically a Victorian girls’ finishing school, complete with classes in poise and charm, etiquette, dancing, and wearing long dresses and heels. The other problem is that Bianca, our main character mostly just watches the events unfold. Her purpose is mainly to lay out all of the events, and tell us the parallels and put the pieces together, but she doesn’t really take part until near the end of the book. She only uses her muse powers maybe once in the book, in the first chapter. Kash is a lot more active than Bianca.