Magic Lessons Review

Magic Lessons is the second installment in the Magic or Madness Trilogy. When we last left Reason Cansino, she was back home in Sydney Australia with her grandmother Esmeralda and new friends Jay-Tee and Tom. The door that separates Sydney and New York is closed but someone has been banging on it trying to get through. Everyone casts spells to try to keep whoever it is away but things aren’t working out too good. Something blob like has made it through the door. It’s hard to tell if it’s human or not but it immediately attacks Reason.

Esmeralda has no idea what this thing is or how to keep it away from the door. In the mean time Jay-Tee isn’t doing well since losing so much of her magic in the previous story. The more magic you use, the closer you come to dying. Jay-Tee is only fifteen years old as is Reason and Tom. Will she not make it to sixteen because of the overuse of magic?

While the group tries to keep the blob out, somehow Reason gets pulled through the door and flung into New York in the middle of the night. Reason is all by herself once again and unable to return to Sydney because the blob is guarding the door and blocking her way. Will she return home before her grandfather Jason Blake finds her and drains all of her magic? What is the blob? Why is he after Reason? Can Reason trust Esmeralda or has she been lying to her all along?

Magic Lessons is an excellent story that picks up where Magic or Madness left off. I am hooked on this trilogy and am very anxious to read the last installment. There’s plenty of action and imagination at work in this story. I loved every last page in this book and would highly recommend Larbalestier’s books to fantasy readers.