The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

Title: The Iron Trial

Author: Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

Publisher: Scholastic

Publication date:  September 9, 2014

Pages:  304

Source/format: ARC from BEA

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Synopsis  (from Goodreads):

Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.

Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail.

All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.

So he tries his best to do his worst - and fails at failing.

Now the Magisterium awaits him. It's a place that's both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future.

The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . .  

My Thoughts:

The Iron Trial is a fun read. To me it's a mashup between The Heroes of Olympus series and the Harry Potter series. There are a lot of similarities between The Iron Trial and Harry Potter series to the point where some readers might think the Magisterium series is a rip off of Harry Potter. Thus being said, some of the plot twists were not twists for me at all because some of the things that happen in this book are similar to Harry Potter but it is not a Harry Potter rip off. Who doesn't like reading books full of magic and boarding schools? Three friends go to a magic school and a male mentor guides them through their journey. Sound familiar?

Black and Clare add their own flair to their world of the Magisterium. Students who have an affinity for magic don’t automatically receive a letter when they turn eleven to attend the school. Students must work hard to enroll into the school, only if they are worthy enough.

Masters will then choose three students to be their apprentices. These Masters are mentors will guide their apprentices until they finish school. There are five trials to complete, each trial to pass through each school year gate. They teach their students how to control their magic. Control is very important in this book and I assume in the entire series.

Instead of being witches and wizards, magical folk are called Mages or Masters. Mages are those who have the magical affinity and are being trained to study the five elements (earth, air, water, fire and the void). Once a Mage passes through all the Magisterium gates, one will become a Journeyman/Journeywoman Mage. When one masters all five elements, one will become a Master.

I love the cover art for this book. It's absolutely gorgeous and captures the book accurately. The book reads at a pretty decent pace but the Sand Room sections of the book moved fairly slowly.

I can't wait to read the next installment of the Magisterium series and I am definitely going to read each book of the series when they are released.