What a fun romp this was!! The writing was juvenile but I gotta say, after reading fucking A Feast for Crows, Sera the siren and hot girl summer was a breath of fresh air. I love this type of book; it unexpectedly hit all of my buttons: fantasy, doesn’t take itself too seriously, consensual, loving, and uncomplicated polyamory, fun and funny characters, and a fast pace. Reading this book was a trip to the amusement park, and I knocked it out in a day and a half. It’s a little trashy, a little cheesy, but I guess I openly like romance novels now? And I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like. I’m getting ahead of myself--
Seraphina Goldenwand is the heiress to Nathanial Goldenwand, CEO and creator of the Golden Wands™ and has recently been kicked out of her old magic school for (ahem) misconduct with a professor. She enrolls in The Academy for Misfit Witches under the condition that should she graduate, she will earn her inheritance. I love this set up to death because it establishes Sera to us as a girl who just wants to let loose and have fun; a shallow girl who figures a semester abroad at a shithole is a fair trade for not being disowned. She is part witch and part siren on her mother’s side, and her grandfather has fed her the story that he rescued her while her mother was trying to sacrifice her to the siren gods, or whatever. He also gave her earrings that were her stim throughout the book, a plot device for later. Everyone’s first night is spent in the dungeons beside an underground reservoir (with sharks?), the thought being that one night in there is deterrent enough to stay out of trouble the rest of term. Proving that theory wrong are the gorgeous Firebreaths, three brothers named Draque, Teju, and Landon. What started out as separate detention evolves quickly into a Breakfast Club situation, and then even more quickly into if the Breakfast Club were a porno, situation. Oh, and then the three Dragons are Princes, did I mention that?
Dragon custom is, I guess, however many hatchmates in a group of (dragon) eggs marries their collective ‘mate’ (traditionally it’s three, but it can be less, so I wonder if it can be more, and if the genders were reversed what would happen, and if it were two separate hatch groups of eggs, like a group of three with a group of two then that’s like a big happy family, I am just really in love with the lore alright) All of this to say that the brothers are just fine sharing and taking turns, as are their dads with their mom, and so forth and so on. All Sirens have a version of DID that separates the Id and Superego more literally in their mind. Creatures can communicate telepathically within families. The wand lore is interesting too. Like Harry Potter, The world of the Academy for Misfit Witches has curses that are considered unforgivable. In this world, mind control spells(imperio) haven’t even been fathomed yet, and is a new development that took place in the beginning of this book, killing (avadakadabra) is red and outlawed to the point of being unprogrammed and uncastable in modern wands (which I think is dope that they can do that). Like every witch literature known to man, witches can fly on brooms and cast spells, but so can hybrids, and so apparently can other sentient magical creatures.
The characters and descriptions are a delight. The names are the kind of playful that’s whimsical but also poking fun at the genre’s use of whimsy in their naming conventions. We’ve got the feud between the Goldenwands and the Firebreaths, we have Eagleheart the griffin, Headmistress Dame Doublewart, Professor Prometheus Periwinkle, Athena the troll, Hestia the fairy godmother and so on. (which begs the question: are there eternal beings in the book and if so are Prometheus, Athena, and Hestia THE Prometheus, Athena, and Hestia? And if so, the fact that Athena is a lesbian troll, Prometheus is a professor, and Hestia is a fairy godmother is even more hilarious because how accurate) They are all cartoons, short, sweet, to the point, and designed to make you chuckle. The lesbian principal with two moles on her finger and her serial cheater troll girlfriend were capital H, Hilarious. The pixie and Nathanial Goldenwand are caricatures of the mustache-twirling villain and his part admonishing, part admiring assistant. The lore on dragons, griffins, and other creatures and how they mate is fascinating. The plot is easy to follow as Serah learns that her and her family’s prejudice is unfounded and even self-hating. She despises The Grotto before ever visiting, dismissing it as its own realm and yet is receptive to new ideas when she’s proven wrong. She’s a little spoiled and obnoxious, a little bit of a slut, and also lovable, cheeky, and just the right amount of corny.
What I didn’t like about the whole thing was their proximity to high school. Very easily (like with Euphoria and other media about teenagers) this could have been the College of Misfits, a sort of magical community service for creatures who break laws, or some other waffle like that. I just didn’t see the point in making Sera 18 and the boys 20 year-old flunkees; if you wanted to make an adult book, you should make the characters unequivocally adults in my opinion, and that would have been simple in this case since the book literally had nothing to do with the school itself. Also for a book named after a magical school, the school is featured very little. In fact, the inciting incident is in the first few chapters where the school apparently is razed to the ground leaving no survivors (while our MCs fuck in magic bubble inside a cave, which, I mean, good for them).
I also thought it was very short?? I wish it were longer to flesh out the magical world and the relationship it has with the outside world, or to further explain everyone’s powers and capabilities, but really that’s a nitpick-- because I loved it so much, I didn’t want it to end. I might take a second before ordering book 2 from my local library.
I would have been weirded out by the fact that the three men who are Serah’s lovers are brothers, which means when they have sex they’re like... all involved and seeing each other naked and getting turned on by it or whatever, but then again, I’m also in the middle of reading Game of Thrones: Fire&Blood, which I think has desensitized me to incest? Especially when it’s "true love" like Jahaerys and Alysanne or three dragon bros and their siren gf. I’m giving this book’s quartet a pass because honestly, theirs is a household I would make in my Sims game with wicked whims downloaded.
A lot of the dialogue, I think, is platitudinous but I’m not here for the dialogue, are you? “I’ll save her or I’ll die trying!” I mean, you’ve known each other less than 24 hours. Honestly, I couldn’t tell Draque and Teju apart, but I love their names so I referred to them in my head as the “handsome names” and then Landon as “the sensitive one”. The vocabulary’s not overly descriptive except in the fantastical elements, so I’m free to imagine the boy’s as I please. Judging by the cover, Serah looks like Phoebe Tonkin which I ain’t mad about, but I didn’t like the use of the word ‘mate’ even in relation to magical creatures because it just makes me think of animals. Like, coming from a witch, “won’t you go after your mate, dog?” could realistically, in canon be spat as a pejorative to a shifter or were-creature and that wrankles something in my brain.
I like to structure my reviews like: plot, pros, cons, and conclusions, and as I look over what I’ve done I see that out of every con I’ve wrung something positive out of it. I wish the studio behind Rat Queens made this book a graphic novel. This book was the campiest book I’ve read since Carry On, and thank the Goddess for that.