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!
Book Reviews
Curse of the Night Witch, Reviewed by April, 13
With over 12.6 billion views online, #BookTok has taken the world by storm—an ever-growing community of readers that shares reviews, anecdotes, mood boards, and more about the books they have read. Ever since the hashtag went viral, certain books, even those that had already been published for several years, soared back up to the top of the New York Times bestselling list. In author Alex Aster’s case, just one online video under the BookTok hashtag catapulted her to online fame! The video has amassed over one million views to date and garnered widespread attention over her already-published middle-grade duology, Emblem Island. The first book in the series, Curse of the Night Witch, follows three teenagers on a quest to save themselves from imminent death. In the magical realm of Emblem Island, people are born with emblems on their hands that prophecy their talents. But young Tor Luna, born with a leadership emblem, detests his mark. His plan is to submit a wish to the gods on his village’s New Year’s Eve celebration and hope for a new emblem the next day. Sure enough, Tor wakes up to a new emblem on his arm—the black, blinking eye of a curse! And when his best friend Engle and enemy Melda accidentally touch the curse, a duplicate of the eye travels up their arms, too. To their horror, the trio realizes that if they do not figure out a way to get rid of the curse in a week, it will be there forever—until they die. Now Tor, Engle, and Melda must travel across the colorful but dangerous island to beg the assistance of the Night Witch, all while the ticking time bombs on their arms track every breath that they take. This was a spellbinding fantasy book about friendship, bravery, and everything in between! Emblem Island was a rich tapestry of bright colors, tropical waters, and mouthwatering food, and the Latin influences gave the world a familiar feel while still retaining a unique form. One way in which Curse of the Night Witch was so unique was the book-inside-a-book idea. This novel included excerpts from a fairy tale book of sorts called The Book of Cuentos, which would be told every other chapter. These excerpts always aligned perfectly with the actual story. For example, when The Book of Cuentos talked about a perpetually snowy town, Tor, Engle, and Melda actually visited the town in the story. It was a fun and fascinating way to provide context to the story, rather than dumping information on readers, and the execution was seamless. The thing that bothered me the most was how similar this book was to its successful predecessors. It especially drew similarities to the Harry Potter series—both books involve chosen-one main characters, a funny, food-loving best friend, and the teacher’s-pet character who turns out to be all right in the end. It almost felt unoriginal in that sense, like I was reading something I already had before. However, the mythology retelling has been done so much, especially recently, in the book industry, that it is understandable if comparisons can be drawn between this book and others. Overall, Curse of the Night Witch is a wonderful ride full of the splash of tropical seawater and the cold bite of endless ice. I’m usually not one to say you should jump on the bandwagon, but in this case, you absolutely should—hundreds of thousands of readers online have already enjoyed this lovely book, and there’s no reason why you can’t be the next! Curse of the Night Witch by Alex Aster. Sourcebooks Young Readers, 2020. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
City of Spies, Reviewed by Savarna, 13
‘“This operation is hot. We are a go.”’ Imagine a group of kids. Imagine they are spies. Imagine that the fate of every intelligence agency across the world hinges on their next decision. That’s what it’s like in City Spies by James Ponti. The first of a series, it has everything from deadly viruses and criminal masterminds to food-loving boys and mathematical geniuses. The story starts with Sara. She’s not in the greatest of situations. Actually, let’s rephrase that. She’s just been arrested for hacking the juvenile justice system and a bank, and is going to be sentenced to two and a half years in juvenile detention. And, even though she did it to expose her cruel foster parents as frauds, this is not enough to get her out of trouble. That is, until a mysterious man who calls himself “Mother” walks in and frees Sara from prison, then asks her to join his team of kid spies on their latest emergency mission… From the get go, I loved this book. It was right up my alley and there was no way anyone could have made me stop reading it! Even if you dragged me off to court for hacking a bank, I’d probably still be desperately reading (and hoping to pick up some tips from Sara). Part of what made this novel so good was the humor. The characters’ dialogue had me laughing out loud, even through the tension and excitement, and this made the book very relatable. I also really enjoyed the characters themselves. There are quite a lot of them to get to know but somehow they all fit together seamlessly. This doesn’t mean they always work together seamlessly, though! In fact, there’s quite a bit of rivalry and hostility at the start. While the story mainly focuses on Sara (later known as Brooklyn), the backgrounds of some of the other characters are revealed as the story goes on. City Spies stood out for me because of the multinational settings. Over the course of the book, the story takes you from the US to Scotland and then to France. And each member of the team is also from a different country: Nepal, Rwanda, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Australia — you name it. Luckily for me, they all speak English! If you’re not a fan of mystery or spy stories, City Spies probably isn’t for you. While I enjoyed it a lot, it’s set in a real “spy world,” so for readers who prefer other genres, this is not a crossover to fantasy or sci-fi or horror. On the other hand, if you are a spy story enthusiast, read this book! City Spies by James Ponti. Aladdin Paperbacks, 2021. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! If you have further interest in James Ponti’s novel City Spies, please check out then blogger, now ’20—21 intern Thee Sim Ling’s interview with James Ponti, here!
