I mean it was okay? The magical girl in this is ordinary most of the story while everyone is so certain she's the chosen one. The magical girl system wasn't really explained and overall it wasn't too interesting to read about a "chosen one" who works a part time job while trying to get her powers to manifest.

Also in my head the relationship between the protagonist and Ah Roa is that of a will they-won't they-did they romantic relationship and that's why I've given the story 2.5 not 2 stars.

Telling a whole stoy in about 30 pages is an art. I liked the way the Knight and the Butcherbird were similar and how they had a similar goal but very different ways of achieving it. The plot, however, was not particularly engaging even if I think it's hard to make something super interesting in only about 30 pages. Still, it worked well for a bedtime story.

At first the book seems like a somewhat sad/dark academic story - a younger brother, trying to follow in the steps of his older brother to get into the same university, in which he could learn all the knowledge about the monsters (the teras) that are hunting England. And then Cassius' life goes from bad to worse and even as he is accepted into the trials, the trials are harder and more lethal than ever before.

This book is heavy (I repeat it, heavy) on body horror but with a wonderful dash of discussion from Cassius' perspective about embodiment and what a body is through these scars, disabilities and prosthetics - if and how a body changes and what becomes a part of it. The chapter(s) where Cassius is resting after the third trial were probably my favourite because he's so full of dualities. He's both ruthless and hopeful, both glad to be alive and also desperately angry at himself and the world for still being alive, and I suppose in a way he feels both broken and remade. His relationship with his fellow students was also done well; relationships mostly start from his needs to have people to rely on but in the sense that he's definitely planning on using these people in the beginning, including Leo, Silas and Fred whom he's more or less just met, as well as Victoria and Bellamy who are sort of old friends. And then when Cassius actually has to use them for his own survival and good, he just pikachu faces. Overall, the way Cassius goes from a scared young man who wants to protect his family to becoming someone he probably would have hated only a few weeks ago was satisfying to see and I hope it is explored further in the next two books.

Alongside with his relationship with Leo Shaw, I expect. They're both so very similar if you squint, different sides of the same prism. Without getting into late-book spoilers: the scene where Cassius asks Leo if Leo likes him was so telling, taking into consideration what they've both been through in their lives. It would not have made sense in any other way. But when Cassius in the beginning thought that oh yeah, this dude is totally just using me, I should get rid of him, I snorted because yeah right. You'll need him and not only carnally. You're not fooling anyone.

Anyway, I've not even got into the teras themselves. As a fellow half-educated Classicist, seeing Latin in writing made me pause in the best of ways (no, I don't remember any of it pff, I'm so glad Burr has added translations). And seeing drawings in the ebook hammered it home that these are monsters who maim and kill and people have all the rights to be scared shitless. Even the hunters. Especially the hunters. The way Cassius could not escape the teras even in the places he thought to be the safest goes to show the overall setting of the trilogy. No spoilers other than the last teras scene? I hope it is somwhat included in the next book with Cassius telling his cohort (I refuse to call them his friends) what happened.

Finally - the church scene? Yeah, that one. Well played, Leo, well played.