Magic Marks the Spot

by Caroline Carlson

Date Read: 7/29/16
Rating: ★ ★ ★

I’m not really sure how to review this book. I think it is probably better in book format rather than audiobook. There were a lot of letters going back and forth throughout the story, and it was hard to follow sometimes listening to it. I actually was worried that it was going to be diary format for the 5% of the book!

The one thing that I will say about this is that the narrator of the audiobook actually hurt my ears. She has a high pitch and then when she starts yelling or the story gets exciting, it just hits an octave that really hurt my ears. I was constantly cringing. And because of this, I’m not sure I’m going to pick up the subsequent stories.

I thought Hilary was a good character. She had a strong sense of who she was and she never really wavered from it. She made good friends and was a pretty good judge of character. I really liked her relationship with the Gargoyle.

The thing I liked the most about this story was the magic. I liked that there was only so much magic and someone had taken almost all of it away. If you had some, you had to keep it hidden. It was really unique. I also liked the ending related to the magic.

However, when the big reveal happens about who the Great Enchantress is, it just fell a little flat. There was a lot of buildup and the reveal and character just didn’t really live up to it. I think perhaps the backstory of the Enchantress needed to be built up a little more rather than just told at the end. And it all seemed to go really fast at the end. The wrong thieves are put in jail and very quickly the real thieves are discovered and the plot is resolved.

I think the story may have had too many things going on, so it couldn’t quite decide which part it wanted to focus on. So instead of narrowing it down a little to do it well…it did all of them mediocre.

Overall it was decent. I may have enjoyed it more if my ears weren’t constantly cringing. Perhaps one day I will pick up the books to read the sequels, but for now, I think I’ll just stick to this one.