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17 reviews

Ashley Bagwell

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Ashley is Currently Reading

Ashley Bagwell is currently reading

To Green Angel Tower, Part 2 (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #3; Part 2)

by Tad Williams (Goodreads Author)

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Nov 13, 2025 04:30AM

Ashley Bagwell is currently reading

A College of Magics (A College of Magics, #1)

by Caroline Stevermer (Goodreads Author)

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Ashley Bagwell said: " I know this book has received some negativity but it's absolutely magical. If you enjoy something that's well written, if you enjoy a female lead that is imperfect from her looks to her temperament yet is also boldly multi-dimensional and strong enou I know this book has received some negativity but it's absolutely magical. If you enjoy something that's well written, if you enjoy a female lead that is imperfect from her looks to her temperament yet is also boldly multi-dimensional and strong enough not to have her identity swept away in the slow burning love story (with a very surprising, perhaps jarring, yet wistfully beautiful conclusion), then this is the book for you.

I found this book in my high school library and somehow never returned it (mature me now bemoans all the other quiet youngsters whom I deprived of this work). I liked school. I liked reading and learning. This book is about a young woman going off to college. I was the perfect age to read this book; I was taking AP classes while dreaming of Academia Unknown. Perhaps going to college was even a little more magical to me for having read this book.

A College of Magics is so rich. It begins in a refined all girls collegiate setting with adventure in between classes and does a brilliant job of capturing the joy and turmoil of that fleeting time of life (it was written pre-Harry Potter, by the way, though to be honest, any comparison to Harry Potter is unfair; please make yourself a blank canvas when reading and forget all thought of Hogwarts) and whisks you away on a trans-European adventure that will cause you to fall in love with Paris and want to visit all the secluded little pocket countries of The Continent. Its treatment of magic is unique and fascinating and somehow remains mysterious. The characters are a delight; multi-faceted and wonderful at whitty banter.

I've reread this several times; it's gorgeous and shows me a new color upon every reading. The love story went almost right past me when I was in high school. Now it burns for me more truly than almost any I can name in any other works of fiction.

A College of Magics is entirely unique. It follows no prescribed Young Adult formula (and came from a time before YA was a successful genre churning out half-baked drivel in each author's attempt to become at best the next J.K. Rowling and at worst, at least Stephanie Meyer). If you like a bit of a challenge, if you like when tradition is turned on its head, if every book doesn't have to end for you with mind-numbing clarity, go on and give this one a try. ...more "

Jul 24, 2024 08:52PM · see review

Ashley Bagwell is currently reading

A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)

by Sarah J. Maas (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Oct 16, 2023 03:33PM

See all 21 books that Ashley is reading…

Ashley’s Quotes

“Your heart and my heart
are very, very old friends.”
― Hafiz

359 likes

“Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me!”
― Jim Henson

tags: goblin-king, jareth, labyrinth, sarah-williams

357 likes