Harry Potter Read Alike

The Iron Trial (Magisterium #1)

by Holly Black (Goodreads Author), Cassandra Clare 

Hardcover, 295 pages

Published September 9th 2014 by Scholastic Press

ISBN13: 9780545522250

ARC From ILA

About:

Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.

Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail.

All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.

So he tries his best to do his worst - and fails at failing.

Now the Magisterium awaits him. It's a place that's both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future.

The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . .

(Goodreads)

Rating: 3 Stars

Review:

I’ll admit that I enjoyed this read. I’ll even probably pick up the next book in the series out of curiosity, however, this book is kind of a knock off of Harry Potter. I’m not just saying that because you’ve got kids in magic school. You have 3 kids (2 boys and a girl, sound familiar?), from different backgrounds, befriend each other and become best friends. They “adopt” a magical pet (kind of like the owls, Hermine’s cat, Ron’s rat). There’s a great evil that is similar to Voldermort in Harry Potter. Each book is a different year in school, just like Harry Potter. 

The writing in this book wasn’t amazing. There were a lot of conflicting pieces in the story. At one point Call says he only wears pants so no one will see his scars. The next thing you know he’s dunking his legs in the hot tub like pool in the common room. Was he wearing his pants and getting them soaked while doing that? And throughout Call wants to run away but finding a door to escape is almost impossible. Yet once they get their pet, the kids take it out for secret walks all the time. SO confusing! Young teens and fans of Harry Potter looking for a read alike will probably enjoy this series. Others might be better off finding a different fantasy series.