If Harry Potter and Twilight Had A Baby: Reckless Magic Review

Reckless Magic
by Rachel Higginson

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Pages:  327 pages

Summary: 16 year old Eden Matthews has been in and out of private schools for the last two years. Kingsley is her last chance to finish high school and she is determined to simply do that. But when she meets Kiran Kendrick and her world opens to something she thought only existed in fairy tales, she’s unsure what her future will hold. Suddenly she is captivated by a boy who seems to be the source of all of her problems and struggling to rescue her best friend from a foreign prison. When attempts are made on Kiran’s life, Eden alone must save him. Thrust into a world that is more make-believe than reality, Eden has to find her own destiny without losing those she loves most. Reckless is an intricate story of mystery, adventure, magic and love. Eden Matthews is an unlikely heroine set on a path to save the world and her loved ones before its too late.

BARON REVIEW: So teenage girl goes to new school and meets a mean but painfully attractive boy  who’s dangerous and she is told to stay away from. Of course, she can’t because she’s fallen in love with him. But he has a secret that might keep them apart forever and…

Oh god damn! I read this book already!

All joking aside, I actually started reading this book with high hopes. While the prologue was pretty generic (twin babies being dropped on a door step) I thought that it could turn itself around. After all, Harry Potter managed to make that scenario interesting too, didn’t it?

And it certainly started strong. I really wanted to like the main character Eden. But I could tell that the author really wanted Eden to like the main male lead, Kiran. Even Eden wondered why she was being pushed into this snot of a boy’s arms. Kiran is even less appealing than Joffrey Baratheon and his only good feature is his accent. Seriously. Eden is constantly pointing out how arrogant, cruel, manipulative and conceited Kiran is. But he’s got a nice face, body and a sexy accent so it must be TRU LUV!

If you know Kiran’s secret identity, this gif works even better.

The whole romance plot is painfully trite. I’m not even sure why Eden likes Kiran. He forced her against a few walls and kiss-raped her… so now she’s in love. Great. Well so much for liking the protagonist of this book.

It wasn’t just the romance that bothered me, (although that did make up the vast majority of my gripes in my 134 status updates). I also wasn’t thrilled with the whole way the magic was handled. I know that the author was trying to build a sort of mystery around Eden’s powers- but what this novel was severely lacking was a good Dumbledore-esque figure. Amory should have been this character but he stays in the background. His (or the author’s) excuse for this lack of participation is that he was hoping Eden “would discover it for herself” despite later repeatedly scolding Eden for not catching on sooner since they are kinda on crunch time what with the whole magic terrorist war thing. About 90% of the drama and conflict that this novel has could have been solved in the characters would just communicate. If people like Amory and Avalon would tell Eden the reasons why she shouldn’t do certain things, Eden wouldn’t do half the stupid shit that she does.

Here’s a few examples of what could have been cleared up.

1. Tell Eden who Kiran is.
There was really no reason to keep Kiran’s true identity secret from her. In fact, it makes Eden stick out at the magic school even more because of the way she unintentionally treated him. If she was informed that he was magical royalty- I’m sure Eden would have been less inclined to be around him.

2. Tell Eden she has magical powers.
Again, they said it was super important that she know she has powers seeing how she was causing herself physical pain by being unaware. And drawing an unnatural amount of attention to herself by acting like a human in a magical school.

3. Tell Eden who her parents were and what they did.
Again- this is absolutely imperative for Eden’s survival. Her ignorance at this point is only making her a target. If Eden was more aware of the danger her own existence has put her in the less likely she is to do things that draw attention to herself. Which leads to my next point…

4. Tell Eden that she will be KILLED if people realize who she is.
She looks like her mother. Her mother had a forbidden fling with a body guard and gave birth to twins of most sinful kind in the magical word. Eden and Avalon’s very existence puts them in constant danger. Eden should have been made aware of this. By keeping her in the dark, it enabled Eden to do stupid things completely unaware of the consequences.

I got a little off tangent. But I think I made my point on that front. Back to the use of magic. While it was very interesting, the concept of untapped magical potential literally eating Eden from the inside out… I didn’t like it when magic actually came in halfway through the book. Magic made everything too easy. There were no consequences. Kids could use magic to do homework for them for heaven’s sake. They don’t have to even pay attention. They just will the correct answers into being on the paper. Why bother learning anything anymore? Why bother going to this magical academy? Seems like an awful waste of time.

In Harry Potter, magic didn’t just come to you. There was some risk and rewards involved. It had to be studied and practiced and performed just right. In this book, magic is just everything and makes everything infinitely easy. Magic never seems to backfire on anyone but Eden (and even on her its rare). In truth, this makes the magic of this world very boring.

It’s “it-doesn’t-f-ing-matter-because-magic-does-our-homework-for-us”.  Why do we go to school again?

I also didn’t enjoy the inequality going on. Avalon, Eden’s twin brother, gets told everything about his past, about their family, about magic and about the dangers they would face. Avalon also gets entrusted with a lot of the tasks their parents left behind. But Eden is told to be content with ignorance and idleness. Why? Probably because Avalon’s a boy. That’s the only logic I can find. Eden is far more powerful and even if she looks like her mother, Avalon MUST share some of those features too. Meaning he’s in just as much danger of being recognized.

Maybe this will get explained in the next book that I will never read. But I still don’t understand why Avalon gets to know everything.

Oh yes, and this resistance. Wow. For something that’s an secret society, they sure do go about the whole secret process poorly. I love how they invite Eden along to their meeting without even first making sure she had plans to join. They let her see their hideout, all their faces, know all their names and then listen to their secret plans to murder Prince Kiran. All of this before they double check to see if she wants to join. And even after they ask and find out she doesn’t want to because she LUVS Kiran too much, they let her stay and listen to the rest of the meeting.

…I can’t even begin to explain how utterly stupid this is.

But whatever. The book overall is very long winded. Much of what takes 100 pages to explain could have been done in ten… twenty pages tops. Characters have very bipolar reactions that seem to differ according to the author’s mood. Avalon, Amory and Kiran are notorious for this.

And then the climax of the story is Eden rushing cross country to save her friend who’s on trial for treason. She literally only runs into the room to scream “She’s innocent!” before being whisked away. I can’t help but feel that the whole conflict could have been solved with a simple phone call. Or at least, if Kiran was less of a dick, by his standing up for her. If that’s all it took to save her friend, Eden really should have just stayed at home. While I like it that Eden actually attempted to do something heroic to save her friend- the result was just so anti-climatic that I couldn’t give her full credit. The plot just sort of fizzles out after that. There’s some vague threat made to Eden’s life but yet they have no trouble escaping so the whole thing seems rather empty. Not the best conclusion to such a long novel.

All in all, the novel reads like a first draft. It’s a disorganized long winded mess that needs some serious revising and reworking plot and character wise. There’s the spine of a possibly good YA novel in here somewhere but I don’t think it’s quite there yet. I feel like this novel was self-published way too soon.

Quality: ★ ★   2 out of 5
Enjoyment: ★   1 out of 5
Rereadable: Nope. Uh uh.
Purchase: It’s free. If for some ungodly reason you want to read it, download the free e-book.
Overall: ☹ Bad book

BOOK STATUS HIGHLIGHTS:

• “…I want to talk to my father,” his voice had almost turned into a whine, but his accent was so sexy that I hardly notice.
  “I don’t care how sexy an accent you have. Nothing can make that sort of whine tolerable. This kid, Kiran, is now Joffery Baratheon in my eyes.” -4%
• “Well, you are just going to have to learn. I refuse to dumb down my curriculum because one student is ignorant.”
  “Teacher of the year right there.” -10%
• They sat basking in the sunlight, and again I noticed that all of them, without exception, were extremely beautiful.
  “Ah. But not vampires, I see.” -pg.11%
• “Ah yeah. Not even going to pretend I didn’t enjoy reading that. Kiran going sailing across the room… hope it hurt.” -13%
• Kiran leaned in closer to my neck, his lips nearly touching my ear. His silky and soft voice lost its edge; his lips brushed my hair. “What’s wrong with you?” He said back quickly.
  “Just a guess. But it might have something to do with you trying to seduce her every few seconds.” -18%
• “Wait… I thought Lily was taking Latin. How is she fluent in French? …Because the plot needed her to be?” -20%
• I threw an oversized navy-blue Kingsley sweatshirt on over my tank top; it hung down over my shorts, making me look like it was the only thing I had on.
  “The perfect outfit to answer the door in. No way this could end badly!” -20%
• Kiran let me struggle; I saw the familiar smirk returning to his lips.
  “CREEPER ALERT! START BEATING HIS HEAD IN WITH A TABLE LAMP, GIRL!” -20%
• I think next time we go rock climbing or something as equally terrible as camping.
  “There’s nothing wrong with rock climbing or camping. What is wrong with these kids? It’s like they are being told to hunt, skin and prepare their own food for a month.” -23%
• “Why does she have this illogical fear of camping out and getting killed by a serial killer. Isn’t it just as likely to happen in a school building?” -23%
• No possibility of real plumbing also occurred to me. Welcome to hell.
  “No. That’s not hell. Try being a girl scout where you are expected to clean said outhouses. Then you can talk to me about hell.” -25%
• The animals ripped into their skin, biting, clawing, tearing away pieces of flesh, but only minimal bloodshed proved evidence of a struggle.
  “If flesh is being ripped off, I don’t think blood loss is minimal.” -30%
• …imagined that he was playing a rhythm to god-knows-what kind of angry rock music that I was too innocent to listen to.
  “Since when are you in danger of losing your innocence to rock music? What decade was this set in- the eighties?” -46%
• “Simple black dress equals “midnight hooker”? And apparently hooker says mature. I think Eden still needs helping getting dressed. She obviously doesn’t understand how clothing works.” -46%
• “Six-inch hot pink stilettos? I take it back. Maybe she is going for the midnight hooker look.” -46%
• But I did know that Kiran was not evil and that he was not dangerous.
  HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? No Eden. Tell me! How do you know that he’s not dangerous or evil? He’s already seduced you twice, both times when you said no. Tell me how you know! TRUE LOVE IS NOT A VIABLE ANSWER.
  
• My stomach churned violently, but not from jealousy.
  “Then it sounds like you need to go to the clinic. Cause that’s not normal.” -50%
• I understood that he wasn’t asking much of me, but there was something about Kiran that I was unable to keep myself from.
  “The fact that he’s stalking you certainly complicates matters.” -50%
• I began to accept the fact that he was my brother… I decided it was something I always knew deep within.
  “Thanks for sharing it with the rest of the class.” -61%
• They would kill you without hesitation,” I gulped loudly, afraid to ask his reasons.
  “ASK HIM, EDEN. IT’S STUPID NOT TO. YOU SHOULD ASK WHY YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE, WOULD DIE IF EXPOSED. THAT IS AN IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW. STOP JUST ACCEPTING PEOPLE’S SILENCE! ASK QUESTIONS YOU STUPID STUPID GIRL.” -65%
• I had a very uneasy feeling about the true meaning of his words.
  “ASK HIM! ASK HIM THE TRUE MEANING! ASK HIM ASK HIM ASK HIM!!! STOP BEING A USELESS PROTAGONIST!!” -66%
• “Why can’t I drive?” I whined…
  “First of all you don’t use magic enough for me to trust you,” Avalon explained as if I were the unsafe driver, meanwhile I was pretty sure he just ran the last three cars we passed, off the road. “Second, …
  “…You’re a woman.
  Aw, come on Avalon. Just own up to it. We know you’re thinking it.” -66%
• “I’m not saying that I’m joining. But I will listen to the rest of your meeting.”
  “Because that’s how resistances work. You can sit through a secret meeting and then decide whether or not to join their cause. After seeing all their faces and knowing all their names… perfectly okay for you to take some time to think about it.” -68%
• Amory looked at Avalon with a type of longing I couldn’t define.
  “Am I sensing a Dumbledore Harry romance blooming? Magic Principal’s got some serious forbidden love going on with little Avalon here. Bow chika wow wow. Don’t worry, Eden. I’ll explain it to you when you get older.” -68%
• They pushed each other playfully until Titus stepped in, grabbed both their heads and slammed them together.
  “Don’t worry. They’re just playing.” -70%
• I have every say in the matter. As your prince I demand that you remain in your house the entire time I am gone. In fact, I am placing you on house arrest until I return.”
  “Yeah… Dood, why doesn’t every chick in the world want this guy. So hot. [/sarcasm]” -74%
• “Do not question me,” he seethed… “Do exactly what I say or I will have you thrown into prison. Do you understand?” when I didn’t respond, his voice turned even colder. “Do you understand?”
  “Again. Prince Charming, everyone.” -74%
• …and his blue eyes pierced my soul. -75%
  
• The silence was so beautiful that I was afraid to break it with even the slightest sound.
  “What she means is that she was trying not to fart. Trying really hard.” -75%
• “What? Are you telling me that Amory didn’t warn you?”
  “Is that really that surprising? No one tells Eden anything.” -75%
• I did my best to focus on the test in front of me and refrain from magic. It would be easy to magically remember the answers, but that somehow seemed like cheating.
  “Is there NOTHING sacred in this magical world? Why bother sending any of these kids to school? What’s the point?” -77%
• “Lilly Mason is innocent!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
  “She’s just about to find out she walked into the wrong room.” -83%
• His voice broke again and I saw that his eyes were full of tears.
  “Kiran can cry?!! He stole those tears from babies didn’t he? They aren’t even his, are they?” -84%
• “Do you believe in God?” I asked, confused.
  “Of course. Don’t you?”
  “Are you freakin’ kidding me? Why is this even IN here?” -95%