Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Review: Archimancy by J. A. White

I have been a fan of this author for many years now. I loved his first fantasy series beyond words. And will always read his new books. I was a little nervous about this new one, as I'm more of a fantasy person, and do not read many books set in present time. Yet I was excited too. And ended up liking it a bunch. Four stars.

Archimancy was a quick and fun read. I had a small issue getting into it at the beginning, but that did not last long, and I ended up enjoying everything a whole lot. While I didn't fully love the book, it was pretty much adorable, and I'm so very excited about more books coming about these characters. The ending was too soon.

This first book is written from the point of view of eleven year old Cordelia. The summer before a new school year begins, she and her parents had to move from their town, hours away. So she is now starting a new school, with no friends. Cordelia is not happy about this move at all. And she spends a lot of the book unhappy about it, yet also slowly growing to love her school and liking the town too and especially the people in it. And I liked that a whole lot. And I also enjoyed getting to know Cordelia, as she was adorable. Kind and sweet, yet a bit rude too. I loved how quickly she became friends with Agnes, the girl everyone else treated badly. I loved how she went out of her way to get to talk to Benji too, a boy who was ignoring everyone. I adored their friendship.

This is a book about ghosts. How Cordelia starts her new school, which is this huge ancient place that is all kinds of creepy and awesome. And once there, she hears a little boy crying. When she tries to touch him, her hand goes through him. Which freaks her out for a bit. She then also start seeing more than one ghost. I shall not mention more about it, since this book felt so short, maybe because of how fast I read it. But though short, it was still full of great things. And I enjoyed reading all of it. It's full of awesome ghosts.

This book is about Cordelia. And getting to know her. And her getting to know the ghosts of her school. It was interesting to get to know the history of it all, learning why there are ghosts there, and learning how it was possible to help them. Cordelia is the only person who can see the ghosts. Until she notices another boy who can too; Benji. I have already mentioned this, but gosh, I adored her friendship with Agnes and Benji. They became fast friends and were awesome together. Shipped Cordelia and Benji so much, haha.

There is not really all that much I can share about this book. And so I shall not write such a long review. Only sharing that I enjoyed it a whole lot and that I am very much excited about more books. And hoping they will all be about the same characters too, as I need more of them all. I do wish this book had been more scary, haha, yet I was happy with how it was written too. Getting to know Cordelia and her friends was the best. I wish to know even more about all of them, though. And I want even more ghosts as well.

One thing that I did not like much about this book, was that it's so short, and it takes place over an entire school year. I felt like maybe it could have happened faster, without all the time jumps. Yet I also like that they are all older now, but yeah. The time jumps didn't need to be there. I also wish there had been even more friendship scenes with Cordelia and Agnes and Benji. As they were the cutest together. But I did not really dislike anything in this book. Only small things I had issues with. The rest of this one was awesome.

Archimancy was an incredible first book in a new series. Full of fun and friendship and ghosts. I adored all of the characters. And I found the writing to be pretty amazing too. While I do not care much for books set in the present, I did not mind much in this one. Probably because of the creepy school and all the ghosts, haha. This book is not out until August of next year, which is still months away. But couldn't resist reading it early. Huge thank you to Harper for the auto-approval on Edelweiss. You all must read this one as well.


2 comments:

  1. Creepy school, ghosts and wonderful friendships sounds like a great mix! Wonderful review, Carina!

    This is Rachel from The Readers Den, btw. I mostly blog on Waves of Fiction now. :)

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  2. Sounds like a fun book. I really like the cover. :)
    ~Jess

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