Callum Hunt must attend the Iron Trial. A test for potential apprentices to the Magisterium, an elite magic school. Everyone's desperate to pass. But not Callum, after everything his father has revealed about the evil of magic, Callum Hunt is determined to fail. But it seems someone's intent on Callum's success, and despite the disastrous results of the trial, he finds himself whisked off to the place he has been brought up to fear, with an entire web of lies and secrets brought into the light.
I could start this review by ranting about all the similarities The Iron Trial has with Harry Potter. Almost everyone else has. But you know me, I'm always an anomaly when it comes to over-hyped books and I, despite being one of the biggest HP fans out there (I won't lie, I've had real dreams where I visited Hogwarts; I can't for the life of me remember what I was doing there but THAT'S NOT THE POINT! *she declares with emphatic hand gestures to the internet*), aaaand, I actually didn't mind. Not one bit.
If you've read any other reviews of The Iron Trial or if you've read it yourself, you may be thinking: why the heck not? I mean, there's a know-it-all girl and two boys as the main characters, an evil wizard who wants to destroy death (who also happens to look A LOT like the film portrayal of a death eater), a magical boarding school AAAAND the MC has messy black hair and peculiar coloured eyes.
At the beginning I half expected a skinny, scared wizard boy to run into the Magisterium hall manically screaming about copyright issues.
But then I kept reading. And that's when a whole new, far more unique world emerged.
Before I go into the specifics, what I really want to fangirl about is the TWISTS. Most books, no matter the genre or the audience, tend to opt for the 'main character is the hero with an amazing destiny and pure heart' kind of drift, but not The Iron Trial. Callum Hunt is sarcastic, gutsy, and sometimes downright stupid. He's occasionally selfish but just as occasionally good; he's a grounded character, one we can actually see grow. And he isn't extraordinarily strong or clever, his friends trump him in both of these areas. He's the awkward boy in the middle, and it was a great perspective.
As for the writing itself, it was pretty good: funny and light at times but still well developed and keeps you interested. The characters were well written and the world building was decent. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely room for improvement but this is a series so I'm sure we'll get more detail in the next few books. And there are definitely a few too many similarities with HP, but the negative response it's gotten seems a little much to me, more books about magical boarding schools ARE going to be written, maybe we should keep an open mind and try to enjoy them a little before we put them under a microscope. Of course that's just my opinion *laughs nervously* please don't eat me.
And in terms of the whole good versus evil conflict and that soon-to-happen war, well, with that crazy ending it certainly looks like Cassandra Clare and Holly Black have brought something new to the children's fantasy scene…
• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop.
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