This was the August pick for the in-person book club I lead.

This book is a bit of a mix of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Six young, powerful magicians are selected to vy for initiation into the Alexandrian Society, a secret society of the most powerful magicians in the world who protect all the knowledge of past civilizations. The catch: only 5 of the 6 will move on. One must be eliminated.

I hate to say it, but this book was a huge disappointment. It’s dark academia and fantasy which is right up my alley but I was just expecting…more. More action. More than a bunch of young adult magicians being suspicious of each other but sleeping together anyway. By the time a bit of action happened toward the end, I just really didn’t care about any of the characters or what happened. And the ending just left me feeling blah. I feel like this is more harsh than I typically am, but with all the hype around this book, I was expecting a lot more.