Excellent start to a new series. Adventures, friendship and secrets. A dynamite trio that will be sure to keep readers hooked.

awesome. i liked the secret series better, though. im almost done the whole series

I liked this book better than the secret series

This book starts auspiciously enough, with Max-Ernest’s younger brother Clay trying desperately to fit in at school. He is moody, restless and bored with magic and (thankfully) lacking in his older brother’s loquacity that made so much of Max-Ernest’s dialogue a teeth-clenching ordeal to endure.

The book becomes a mystery that needs solving. But as matters gradually unfold what emerges is a staged series of tests that pushes Clay to his limits. However, this tactic cheats the reader of any emotional investment in the book. It’s like one of those novels where the protagonist wakes up to find that everything he experienced was a dream. How can you care about any of it when you know that it isn’t real?

Clay overcomes his bitterness and disappointment at the artificial nature of his trials but the reader doesn’t. Clay is merely being set up to join his brother in some mysterious venture that’s never explained. Thus, the protagonist gets swept up into another secret society, a topic that was done to death in the previous series, and is reduced to being a player in his brother’s concerns. The reader is left disgruntled and unsatisfied by a lack of proper resolution—which definitely makes this a Secret novel.

is this book after the "you have to stop this"?

I'm so excited to read this book! Pseudonymous Bosch is hilarious, and the release date for 'Bad Magic' is even on my birthday!!