Review: Thief’s magic by Trudi Canavan

I received this book via Blogger portal as a review copy in German but I try to translate my Review to English.

Thief’s magic by Trudi Canavan,
2016, Blanvalet Taschenbuch Verlag, Paperback, 672 pages

The first part of this book follows Tyen who is an archaeology student and a magician. And one day he finds a book called Vella (her name is Pergama in german). This book is not a normal book, a thousand years ago, she was a real person. An evil magician turned her into a book. But she’s not just ‘a’ book. She’s a magic book. Like google in book form. As long as she’s in touch with human skin, she can see and know everything that this person sees and knows and read their minds. As soon as you don’t touch her, she’s blind and deaf. If you ask her a question, she has to answer via text form. Basically like Tom Riddles diary only with the knowledge of every person who has ever touched it.

Tyen decides to keep her and not tell his professor that he found her. He is torn between two reasons. One: he wants to update her knowledge, because she was 600 years in a grave under the earth. And two: he is afraid that the university will not treat her as she deserves and that she will, again, be somewhere hidden.

Since it was an evil Magician who turned Vella into a book, his roommate Miko is afraid of the powers this book holds and what it may does to Tyen. So he told the professors everything he knows and the story begins.

The second part follows Rielle. Her story begins when she is walking home from a school and gets taken by a dark man. He takes her with her and uses her as a shield because he doesn’t want to be taken by the priest. In Rielle’s world, magic is something bad and you get punished for using it. Magic leaves a dark smoke behind, when used. So everybody will know that someone used magic and you can be sure, that you soon will be punished. Turns out, her kidnapper is a magician and when the priests found him, they saved her and punished the man. But there is a man, Izare, who is near the scene and takes Rielle home to her parents. On the way home they bond over the same interest in painting. And soon you know, that he will be relevant to Rielle’s story, but they can’t be together because he is not good enough for her parents.

This book took me a very long time to finish. Partly, because I really don’t like eBooks and I don’t know why I never seem to learn. And because this book was with 560 ebook-pages very long and rarely anything happened. It felt like a very long prologue.

Tyen and his world:

Tyen is a good man, who wants to make the right choices in life. He will just do what he thinks is the best thing to do, despite everyone is against it.
I loved Tyen’s world: The University, the magic and the futuristic transportation. But I don’t like the lack of female students in the university.
The writing style is in both parts very well done. It’s magical and not rushed.
The Plot in Tyen’s part is great. And I wouldn’t mind reading a book all about him and his world and his story. I was very, very intrigued by Tyen’s story, mostly because I cared about Tyen and Vella. Moving on to the best part of Tyen’s chapters: Vella. Even though she has no own feelings, I cared about her so much. She was a loyal friend to Tyen and I loved the relationship development. But I wanted to know more about her backstory, and her future and her life in general.

Rielle and her world:

I found Rielle to be a bit boring at times. There was basically no depth to her character and it felt like at times she just did what she was told instead of thinking herself. I don’t like Rielle’s world. Partly because they treat women very bad and because there was not a single character I cared about. I don’t know what the plot in Rielle’s part is. I know it’s about a world where magic is forbidden and priests are running around and punishing everyone who has something to do with magic. Neighbors tell on you, even you own family. I found it frustrating to read about a world, where no girl and woman can go grocery shopping alone, because if a man looks at her wrong or accidentally touches her, her life is completely ruined and she will never find a man that would be willing to marry her anymore.

I wish I would’ve liked this book more than I did, because I accidentally read the blurb for book three and I was very intrigued.

So I ended up giving the first book 3 out of 5 stars, because I really liked Tyen’s chapters and Vella but I don’t know if I will continue with the series.