Well, this was a disappointment.

When describing this book to my friends, I explained that it felt as if it was written by a fourteen year old fantasy enthusiast, posted on Wattpad, and then picked up by a publisher, printed and distributed with no edits made.

THE WRITING
There are careless editing mistakes throughout. (For example, Her dog Bizzy changes gender within two paragraphs. Later her clothes are soaked through and then not and then getting soaked through again? Things randomly reset when convenient.)

The writing is clumsy with weird metaphors and stitched together cliches. Here are some of the strange descriptions
* She absently touched her hair, which was the color of uncooked yams
* a bead of fright washed down her throat
* Ceony’s skeleton slumped within her skin.
*

Spoiler

She’d never trembled so much in life as she had in the last twenty-four hours! Curse Emery Thane for being such a difficult man to rescue!

* Ceony did not frequent cemeteries. They were such sad places.
* It wasn’t until the first day of secondary school when Ceony rounded on Mickel and cut him a steaming piece of her mind that he stopped his torment. (not a spoiler, this is the first and only time Mickel is mentioned).

We get lots and lots of descriptions of clothes and hairstyles. LOTS. I also got her make up routine down.

THE CONTENT
Towards the end, it appears as if she can't decide just how futuristic this Victorian society is and how far in the past it is.

Spoiler

At one point the character goes to counseling because she sees her best friend--who is in pretty much none of the book--slit her wrists in a bathtub.

Characters spring up who are supposed to hold emotional weight despite the fact that they've never been so much as mentioned before that scene. I'm looking at you Anise Hatter. Also there is no chemistry between ANY of the characters. Not a bond between Ceony and Mg. Aviosky, not romantic tension between Ceony and Mg. Thane. It's a school girl crush on a teacher which is unfounded

Spoiler

yet at the end we're led to believe he's going to love her too and they'll have kids.

There isn't even any tension between Thane and Lira. It's ugh.

The promise of an interesting plot is just strong enough to get me through the bad writing, but honestly it turns out I was just interested in the premise. There hardly was a plot. Nothing happens or has any direction for the first 51% of the book, and the last half doesn't drastically improve.

Here's the book in five sentences:

Spoiler

Ceony, a Wunderkind, is forced to become a Paper Magician against her will, but is intrigued by her quirky tutor. One day at dinner, the tutor's former love comes and rips his heart out of his chest. Ceony decides to go after her to try to save his heart, wanders through it looking at his happy memories, hopes, sad memories, and doubts, and then his spirit helps her escape. She defeats the practiced blood magician despite being woefully underprepared and untrained, and goes back and reunites with him. Also she's in love with him because he made her a paper dog.

That's it. That's the book.

VERDICT
I honestly don't know if I'll read the other two to see if they'll get better.

Not as big of a disappointment as The Place on Dalhousie, and the writing wasn't as gag-inducing as The Sun is Also a Star,