One of the hardest things to do is to unlearn. To completely reset everything you’ve ever learnt and to replace it all with new ideals. Realizations that, as hard as they are to understand, have the capacity to change your life forever. In The Troubled Girls Of Dragomir Academy, 12-year-old Marya Lupu finds herself caught in the middle of a struggle between her parents and the town of Torak, her peers at the mysterious school she has been sent to, and everything she starts to unravel inside of it. In the kingdom of Illyria, every boy has the potential to become a sorcerer, to hold invariably large amounts of magic. Our protagonist, Marya Lupu, however, has spent all her life in the shadow of her brother, Luka Lupu, who, solely because of his gender, has caused his conservative family to glorify him to an agonizingly large extent. Marya, no matter how much she longs to be more than a helper, or more than a documenter of history, has always been told that she was meant for this by her parents. When she accidentally manages to ruin Luka’s test for magical ability while also talking back to a sorcerer of high position, she gets sent to the Dragomir Academy for Troubled Girls, a secretive school for girls with supposedly distressing pasts to turn over a new leaf. While Marya starts to find her way around the school’s ways while also starting to make new friends in the Rose Hall, the threat of the Dread, a deadly fog-like force that went from town to town to devour its people—the result of the magic of the witches of Kel (according to High Count Arel, one of the sorcerers from the sorcerer’s guild, a group dedicated to fostering magic to the boys in Illyria and protecting its citizens from the Dread)—starts to make its way closer to the Academy. She starts to explore the secrets of the academy and its deviously rich founders, and slowly the puzzle pieces of an entire hidden past start to fall in place. Stuck between her teachers, her newfound family, and an unexposed fourth wall of magic, will Marya navigate through the murky waters of Dragomir Academy to finally figure out what the magic of Illyria truly is meant to be? There were a lot of things that stuck out to me in this novel, one of them being the foreshadowing and core messages tucked inside the vivid characters of the story. Marya’s character arc consists of her learning to unlearn everything, to use conscious thought to analyze everything she has ever learnt before coming to a conclusion. One of my favourite characters, Mademoiselle Lucille Bandu, is a Master Weaver and one of Marya’s earliest influences. She helped her look past the stereotypes Illyrian society placed upon her and kept in contact as long as she could during our protagonist’s time at the academy. The world-building and magic system were well developed without being confusing; all the characters in the story got their own character arc without being left behind. My most favourite thing about this book was how the magic itself was introduced. It made use of the characters and plot lines to elevate its significance, and, rather than being specific, it was introduced as a life form, an abstract default of sorts that existed all around them, thought of as you’d think of a particularly beautiful natural environment. When I first finished reading this book, there were so many intricacies to think about that it left my head in a daze for nearly a week. The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy is a spellbinding piece of fiction that will leave you thinking about Illyria and its tapestries for a long time after. The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by Anne Ursu. Walden Pond Press, 2021. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
The Infinite Lives Of Maisie Day, reviewed by Pragnya, 13
Hypotheticals are born everyday, usually from seemingly insignificant occurrences that align together to form questions that aren’t necessarily easy to answer. Of course, they’re meant to stay inside the depths of our imagination, but sometimes they start to shape themselves into a culmination of coincidental thoughts. What if, one day, you woke up, only to find the world around you gone? What if all the color in the world had been sucked out of your body? What if, one day, you woke up only to discover yourself dead? What if you never woke up again? The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day is a show-stopping science fiction novel that follows child prodigy Maisie Day and all the events that take place on the day of her 10th birthday. Told from alternating first-person perspectives, the story starts with our protagonist waking up on the day of her 10th birthday to completely disorienting darkness. As she slowly but (un)surely navigates her way through a different environment, our perspective shifts to Maisie with her family, celebrating her birthday like any other person would. With added suspense, the story starts to pick up, providing much-needed context through monologues and fast-paced realization. Maisie starts to question everything she’s ever learnt and her existence starts to take on a whole new meaning. Who is she? And was her 10th birthday ever meant to be? This story, although relatively short, packed in an extremely complex plot by mixing in concepts of science and math, while never decreasing the interest. It chose to focus on a few characters rather than including too many of them, and the author skillfully constructed a narrative between Maisie, and her older sister Lily. I especially enjoyed Lily’s character development, who went from being portrayed as angsty and uncaring to mature, sensitive and creative. This ties into a very well-done aspect of the story, which is how the point of view affects our idea of the characters. Maisie, while being academically gifted, does not let it get in the way of her child-like nature, and seeing how she views the world around her elevates the story. I especially enjoyed reading her thought process and how she incorporates her learnings into the real world. With brilliant foreshadowing, a unique storyline and characters skillfully woven to come alive on the page, The Infinite Lives Of Maisie Day will suck you in and make you ask the question, “What would I do if I had never read this novel?” The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day by Christopher Edge. Random House Children’s Books, 2018.
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, reviewed by Pragnya, 12
Sherlock Holmes is one of the world’s most famous fictional detectives. He, along with his accomplice Dr. John Watson, solves mysteries and cracks incredibly intricate cases. In The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, however, Holmes finally meets his match in 15-year-old egotistical Mary Russell in this story of mystery. The novel is an enticing adventure about looking behind the obvious to see what lies behind the seemingly coincidental whodunit. Set in 1915, in Britain, Mary has her nose in a book while accidentally stumbling upon Sherlock Holmes, who, tired of the constant adventure in London, had decided to take up raising bees in a quiet Sussex estate. Over time, Holmes and Mary start to grow closer, creating a mentor-tutor bond between the unexpected duo. Russell, intellectual as much as she was gawky, had been accepted to Oxford in the year of 1917, fresh from Holmes’ lessons. In 1918, the American senator’s daughter Jessica Simpson had been kidnapped and there was no one better to call on the case than Holmes, who takes Mary on her first international case. However, while rescuing her, they start to realize this plot ran much deeper than they thought. They start to follow a mystery that takes them across the world, across cryptic codes for them to uncover a tale intertwined in the middle of forbidden fate. The setting is rich and vivid, filled with lots of details about life in the early 1900s. Every scene is packed with action, either emotionally or physically. I especially enjoyed the point of view and the distinct personalities of the characters, Mary’s especially strong personality resonating with me and many other coming-of-age adolescents, not to mention being especially empowering for young girls such as myself. Being a mystery genre aficionado, I went into this expecting to find many hints and this book failed to disappoint. The foreshadowing towards the end of the adventure was expertly done, with little clues being dropped in the most unexpected of places. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. With its witty conversations and monologue, engaging prose, and relatable characters, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice will leave you hanging tight on to the edge of your cover until the very last reveal. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King. Picador USA, 2014. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
