The Paper Magician Review

This week's novel is The Paper Magician, YA fantasy by Charlie N. Holmberg.

Upon graduating top of her class from magic school, instead of going on to bewitch metal to make firearms as she'd dreamed, Ceony is ordered to become a magician who bewitches paper, because the country only has a handful of Folders left.  Ceony moves in with Thane, her new teacher and master Folder, and learns that paper magic is more than just decorative.  She can animate paper craft an origami animals, make ghost images of stories written on paper, and make cold confetti snow.  When Thane is attacked by someone who bewitches human flesh, Ceony goes on an adventure to save him, taking her on a dreamlike trip through his heart.

Honesty hour: I read this because the animated paper craft sounded similar to something in the Firebird story and I wanted to check it out.  It turns out that there's a moment where the two stories both have a paper craft dog.  I went "Well, crap," and added it to evidence that I should abandon my story.  But while visually, the dogs may be similar, the magic works differently and the dogs emphasize such different things and function so differently that I decided it wasn't so bad.  Everything under the sun has already been done, and I'm sure that there are at least a dozen other magic paper dogs out there, so I'm not going to let it get me down.

As for the book itself, I found the whimsy charming.  The imagery was delightful, especially the origami fish that swam through the air or the paper airplane that can carry a passenger while not looking any more complicated than a standard paper airplane. 

The journey through the heart is strange, especially since the book starts slow, gets moving abruptly, and then bends what's real and what's figurative.  I was reminded of the dream logic in Inception, complete with malevolent ex-wife and "we need to keep going!" attitude.  I may have made several foghorn noises while reading.  But under this drama, there's still something sweet about traveling through someone's heart and seeing their hopes and fears.


I did not buy the romance, and I'm a bit skeeved out by it.  Teacher/student romantic relationships generally make me uncomfortable, especially in this case were the power dynamics are so horribly lopsided.  In addition to that, they scarcely interact outside their teacher/student relationship, except for when Ceony tromps about in Thane's heart and learns all his deep, dark secrets.  Her deciding that she loves him comes out of nowhere, and Thane just seems kind of amused by her obvious crush on him.   I feel like if she ever addressed it directly, he would not be down with it and would try to let her down easy, but as long as she keeps her crush to herself and acts like a grownup he can ignore her so she can save face.

I know I'm wrong about that extrapolation.  And I know there are two more books in this series that probably prove me wrong in ways that cannot be disputed, but I'm going to pretend.

***

Next week: Across the Universe, YA sci-fi with all the dystopia tropes in space, by Beth Revis.