I enjoyed most of this book, but I also understand why other people wouldn’t. I liked the fact it wasn’t a standard magic school narrative: I liked the fact that they dealt with issues, that the teachers were flawed and human, that there was never enough money and never enough time. I liked taking a look at what magic school might be in the real world. But that also means it wasn’t charming or cozy, escapist or exciting, the way most magic schools are written to be. It’s understandable that a realistic school with some magic in it isn’t as appealing. I also liked the characters. I liked that Walden was a teacher first and everything else second. I liked how unlikable Mark was. I loved the glimpses of the sixth form invocation students and their misadventures. And I liked Laura, though she and the marshals confuse me, which I rant about below. I also understand how the lack of romance would be frustrating, particularly the lack of page time for Laura and Walden to interact. There were also some issues with pacing and plotting and I think the book could have been tightened up a bit, but on the whole I enjoyed it.

Unhinged rant: The marshals confuse me. Are they cops or not? Even the narrative doesn’t seem to know. So the marshals are an old order of knights that kill demons (not cops) incorporated into modern law enforcement (cops). Schools marshals patrol the school armed, but because of the threat of demons, not to discipline or punish the kids. Laura attempts to dissuade Nikki from learning demon summoning but does so through Walden, not by intimidating or even talking to Nikki, and this appears to be a misplaced personal feeling not a professional agenda. Walden says she doesn’t like armed marshals on the school intimidating the kids, but they never do intimidate the kids on page and there’s never any evidence that they’re doing so in the background. They don’t break up fights, they don’t administer punishments or lectures, they don’t hassle the kids about what they have, what they’re doing, where they’re going, etc. I went to a private school (not nearly this ritzy) and security at a private school usually does not act like security at a public school—there’s too much money at stake in the form of tuition and the parents usually have too much status. Even the marshals outside the school don’t seem to enforce laws or police people. They’re just around to hunt demons. The most they do is either check up on if anyone’s at risk for attracting demons (like Nikki as a child, and I feel like it’s not stressed enough that she didn’t SUMMON anything, it was drawn to her and broke through) and in extreme cases they investigate magicians would could be summoning demons. But even this investigation feels un-cop-like because summoning demons is not an inborn ability, it’s the product of an expensive and elite education and therefore the only people who can do it are people with a lot of societal power. It’s not so much hassling random black person as it is questioning a trained knife fighter who’s been at the location of multiple stabbings. All this to be said, the only thing the marshals really seem to do is hunt demons—extraplanar beings that kill and eat humans. Even the Phoenix (who is the most human of any demon we see) is still fundamentally inhuman and is extremely violent and dangerous. So the marshals hunt demons and sometimes investigate the extremely privileged people who might unleash them on the world. If this is the case, are they even really cops?? They seem more like magic animal control who every so often have to arrest the demon equivalent of Tiger King. I have been thinking about this way too much. I feel insane.