Dear blog-reading audience,

I have just finished the third book in the Magisterium series named, The Bronze Key by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare.  This was a book that was published in 2016, and is a 249 page fantasy book that is funny yet nerve racking and will have you at the edge of your seat.  But I knew that it would be great even before I read this book.  I knew because all of the previous books of the series were just as good.  They were just as entertaining as this book.  That is why I chose to read this book, because of how amazing the previous books where. The authors of this book are very talented. The two authors met at one of their book signings over ten years ago. They became friends by talking about fictional stories. I’m glad they became friends, because if they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have made such an amazing book series.

The main three characters were introduced in book 1 of this series and return in this story for another summer.  Call, Aaron, and Tamara will be entering their Copper Year at the Magisterium but now they have to go to ceremonies during their summer.  These ceremonies are to celebrate the end of a war.  But is the war ever really over?

When a terrible tragedy happens, the three friends go on alert as they realize that Call is in more danger than he ever was before.  They decide that Call can’t be let out of their sight. With all this new pressure, he starts to wonder who he can still trust. What catastrophe will this result in?  

  I chose a passage that I liked from the book.  During the passage, Call and Aaron were battling robots that they had made.  It was a summer day that they were peacefully spending together.” Call made a few final tweaks to his robot right before sending him into the ‘ring’- a section of garage floor outlined in blue chalk. He considered it the fighting zone for the robots he and Aaron had painstakingly built out of car parts, metal magic, and a lot of duct tape. On that gasoline soaked floor, one of their robots would be tragically rent to pieces and the other would emerge victorious.  One would rise and the other would fall. One would-

Aaron’s robot chugged forward. One of it;s little arms shot out, wobbled, and beheaded Call’s robot. Sparks fizzed in the air.

‘No fair’”  Call yelled.”(page 1)

There is a reason why I chose to write this passage. I chose this passage because it shows us how character relationships have changed.  For example, Aaron and Call have become much closer friends because they spent the summer together.  Also, this is the passage where the humor in the book starts.

I noticed how the author added more humor to the characters personalities.  At the beginning, you notice the more amounts of humor in Aaron and Call’s personalities.  But as the story line developed, the humor in the characters diminished. This is partly due to the changes in the plot.

The main character who’s name is Call.  At first glance, he seems like a normal person, but really, he has a complex background and lots of internal conflict.  Secretly, he found out that he has the soul of a terrible person.  So, for the entire book, he has an internal war of convincing himself that he will not become this person.  Counting himself of for something he knew was bad. Or for something other people did wrong.  This results in lots of deep thinking for the character and reader.

The genre of this book is obviously fantasy.  I could tell you because this book is about three kids who go to a school to learn how to use magic.  Considering no one in the world can actually do the type of magic that they do in the book, this makes it fall under the genre of fantasy. Finally, in the book, they were hovering with no technology and there were monsters named the elemental. Since none of  these things exist in the real world, the novel would be classified as fictional.

Overall, I give this book a book an “8”. I chose this score only because, I really like the writing quality of this book.  But, I do not like the outcome of this plot because it made me very upset.  In sum, I really like this book series and recommend it to others who need a book series.

Sincerely,

Julia Boffa