The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg (The Paper Magician Trilogy #1)

Okay so I was scrolling through the goodreads reviews on this after finishing on it, and so many people gave this book below three stars, and I just don't get it, why would you do that? I mean it's not the best book I've ever read but I still love it, and I just don't get why people don't.

The Paper Magician focuses on Ceony Twill who has just earned a magicians apprenticeship after graduating first in her class, and is now going to train under Magician Emery Thane, a paper magician, crushing her dreams of manipulating metal with magic.

Under Magicians Thane's guidance Ceony learns how to animate paper animals, bring stories to life with ghostly images and even read fortunes. She also learns of the forbidden magic of manipulating humans, their blood and flesh. 

When an Excisioner - a user of the forbidden magic breaks into Thane's home, taking the one thing crucial to his survival, Ceony embarks on an adventure to save her teacher.

 So I bought this book on my kindle when I saw it was only £1 quite some time ago (I also managed to swipe The Glass Magician for the same price - bargain!), and I really enjoyed this book, it was a bit slow to start off with but once I was halfway through I couldn't put it down (which was really bad because I had my AS mocks this week and I needed sleep).

So the plot of the book was interesting, only having one material to specialise your magic in was a particularly good idea, and I liked the fact they actual had to go to school and work to earn that magic - that way you knew all of them really wanted it. Obviously, the idea of alternative fantasy universe and the idea of good vs. evil never gets old, especially when there's magic.

I'm not going to deny it, Ceony annoyed me at the start of the book, honestly, she just complained about being a paper magician for the first part of this book, I would have been grateful just to learn to have the chance to be a magician even if I specialised in paper. But she grew on me throughout the novel and I related to her more as she progressed as a character, and I can't blame her for falling in love with a man 10 years her senior - he sounds adorable.

Now, Magician Emery Thane sounds like the most adorable magician to exist, and I really like the description of his eyes (I know that sounds really soppy), He's quite a mystery until the end of the book, but at the start I fell in love with his humour, and quirkiness, and you kinda just want to hug the character after learning he had to divorce and excision er that he loved dearly; especially when you know he hopes for a family one day.

Now the romance between this two is kinda weird and cute, it's weird because you realise theres' about ten years between them, but you instantly start to ship them when Emery makes Ceony a paper dog when he learns she misses her own, and you've just gotta love that. I also love the general conversations between these two where they just fire jokes at each other, and the way Ceony can read everything from Emery's is soppy but also cute because it's not happening to me.

Overall, I liked this book, I enjoyed the book more as it progressed and I think you need to have patience to read this but it's worth, and I'm already reading The Glass Magician,