Magisterium: The Iron Trial - Fantasy Adventure Book for Teens & Young Adults | Perfect for Fans of Magic, Mystery & Coming-of-Age Stories

I've always really loved Holly Black's work and really hated Cassandra Clare's. Part of this is because I'm not a fan of Clare's writing style. The other part is that I'm an old fan who remembers the Old Drama, so: bias, basically. So I put off reading this for a really long time.Almost 3 years, actually. I kept seeing it come up in my Amazon recommended feed and was like nOOOOOOOOOO because surely, SURELY this book sucked. Because Cassandra Clare wrote it, even if Holly Black did, too.But then I ran out of things to read (again!) and begrudgingly downloaded the free sample. Then bought the book before I was even halfway through the sample. Then read the book in a single day and bought the next one before I was even done with the first one. And now the 3rd one, due out this month, is in my pre-order list.Needless to say: I was wrong. It's great. The premise is very obviously Rowling-inspired, down to the iconic trio and mysterious legacy and abusive parental figures (although in this one, it's the protagonist's actual father, rather than an uncle). It reads more like an homage to Rowling than a plagiarism, though. It's charming. I like that the protagonist is disabled and that the book deals with that frankly, rather than shying away from the anger and frustration that often accompanies disability. It's a great book for kids. It doesn't contain the usual "fatties are evulz!!!" narrative in children's fantasy literature, (which is incredibly tired) and everyone is shown to be multi-faceted, rather than straightforwardly black and white.It doesn't have the bite of Black's usual works--tempered more by Clare's style. I found that disappointing at first, but after finishing it, I'd say that it's for the best for the initial book--just like HP 1 was gentler than those that came after. I'll be interested to see where the series goes from here.The only bad thing I can say for it is that I'm annoyed that I didn't wait longer so I could binge-read the whole thing.