The Iron Trial by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black

10/23/2014

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 mean only bad things for him.

So he tries to do 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 . . .

Callum Hunt, having a bad leg causes him to have a limp when he walks and an easy target for teasing and bullying, but he is far from any of the bullied kids because he fights back and isn't one to be put down by anyone. He lives in a sleepy little town with his antique-collecting father, Alastair Hunt.

Call seems like an ordinary pre-teen angry boy, but he has his fears and nightmares. While some may be fascinated with the thought of magic, he and his father are not. This being the reason of the death of Call's mother, as what he is told by his father, whom was once a mage but turned his back on it completely after the death of his wife. Ever since he was young, he was warned by his father to never have to do anything about magic, mages and especially the Magisterium – a school where master mages make apprentices of magic-wielding children like Call – or his death would be imminent.

Before one gets to be an apprentice, one has to first pass a sort of entrance exam for the Magisterium, the Iron Trial. Call and his father's plan was to fail all the tests intentionally, easy right? While he did succeed in failing all the tests, even given negative scores, still he was chosen by Master Rufus as apprentice, his father's same master while studying in the Magisterium. Of course at first he was frightened but gradually Call liked being the Magisterium learning magic and stuff and had even made great friends with his co-apprentices.

But what was his father really so afraid of? His past and his future are laid out for him, and it is up to him to choose which path to take.

While the prologue of the story was grim, the rest of the story was entrancing. The characters are likeable and familiar. By familiar I meant like the Golden Trio familiar. The whole time I'm reading it I kept thinking of the Harry Potter series! I can't help it! I kept comparing them.

Like Hogwarts, the Magisterium is also a school that teaches magic
Three main characters both having two boys, and a girl. Both girls are smart!
School with lots of secret rooms, passageways, corners… check and check!
While I wouldn't say Jasper comes any close to Draco's swagger, they're both annoying still.
The return of the Enemy, like Voldy who was reduced to something when he tried to kill Harry and began living in someone else's bodies, the Enemy allegedly transferred his soul to Call as a baby.

Cassie has a way of creating funny conversations between characters, but I don't see so much here. There are some humorous lines but not one I really LOLed to, like the way I do in TMI series.

I hope it gets better in the coming books, because I really think it has a good story.

I give it 3 stars.