It took me a lot longer than it should have to read this excellent book, because my depression made reading the ebook version a slog, even though it was extremely good and I knew it. Months later, I listened to the audiobook version, and I finally finished it. And I am so glad I did, because I was right. This book is amazing! I love the characters, I love the magic in it, I love the mystery and the heartbreak and the action. I love the world-building! I love everything about this book!

The story follows Malik, a young black man (seventeen for most of the story) with a history of pain and heartbreak. He is a strongly principled young man, and he has magic. He doesn't know how to use it at first, because he's on his own. But he manages to figure out enough to help his brother so they can start a new life together. In the process, he is found by lost family that have been trying to find him for ten years, a family of fellow magic users. He gets into a school of magic, reluctantly at first, but he needs answers to what happened to his mother. The school of magic he gets into is an HBCU -- a Historically Black College/University, and it is a vibrant and fascinating place, the writing is very well done, the author made the place come alive so powerfully.

The mystery in this story is a wild ride. I was able to put some things together ahead of him. Other things surprised me just as much as they surprised him. I am very, very much looking forward to the next installment, which is currently on hold at my local library. I hope it's at least as good as this one, and I have a lot of faith that it will be.

If you want to read a story about a young man finding his magic and getting involved in fighting the forces of wickedness, and you're tired of it always being a white boy, then I have a strong feeling you will love this, because all the major characters in this book are black, and most of them are magic users. I can only think of one white character at all in the book, a very minor one in the beginning, who didn't even get a name.

Seriously, this is light-years better than Harry Potter, no contest. And none of the bigotry! Along with many black characters, one of Malik's friends at school is a non-binary trans person, and another friend of his is a bisexual dude. I don't know about you, but I consider these things to be big pluses.

If I could give this book ten stars, I would!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6539846073

(I gave it five stars out of five.)

Something that'll never get old for me is discoveries that highlight my tendency to accidentally stumble into something far more clever than I could consciously manage. That is, plot points or names or whatever else in the story that would make the reader think I'm extremely clever at writing, but it was a complete accident.

Today's example: I have a character who is a serial killer / hitman, but he is very charming and funny, and unlike most serial killers he doesn't kill women or children. His name is Orcus Oberst. Now, the Orcus part was intentional, Orcus being a god of the underworld and punisher of broken oaths, in Etruscan and Roman mythology. (Something that becomes a bit ironic at one point in the story.) But I have no idea where I came up with the surname Oberst. It just came to me, the way so many names and new words do, and I kept it because it sounded cool.

While watching a video by YouTuber "Quinn's Ideas" about vampires in science fiction, one of the blurbs of a book caught my attention. He had said "oberst." I looked up the word, which I had never thought to do before after giving Orcus his surname, and apparently it's a German military title. The context of this discovery was somebody running from a Nazi officer.

So the only issue with this is that Orcus absolutely hates fascists. And since "Orcus Oberst" is not his given name, I doubt he would choose a surname that he knew had connections to fascists. Though it is apparently an old title dating back into the feudal era, it's not exclusive to Germany, and does occur as a surname IRL.

So yeah, both his given name and his surname warn you he's dangerous, and only the given name was intentional on my part. Since my dad is a big WW2 history buff, I wonder if I heard the word from him at some point and my subconscious supplied the term as a surname when I was naming Orcus.

How people think voting for the President in the US works: Everyone votes for the President by popular vote. Whoever gets the most votes, wins. Just like with other elections.

How it actually works: A cabal of wealthy people whose names and faces we're not allowed to know are bribed by candidates to vote for one of them while we pretend the popular vote means anything at all. Oh and the voting machines are rigged anyway, so voting is doubly pointless for the presidential race. We do it anyway, and get really judgey at people who vote "wrong" even though it is, again, completely pointless.