Magic & Fantasy Books for Girls: Magic Academy is a book I would not recommend to tweens. The targeted ages are 9-12, but to be honest, I don’t even think that the average 9-year-old or 12-year-old would enjoy this book. The writing is boring, the characters are one-dimensional, and the descriptions of the characters and environment around them were uninteresting. Lindsey Waters is a shy 7th grader who wants to make friends, Laurie is the popular girl who doesn’t like Lindsey because she’s weird (she’s a witch too), Cir is a witch who is like a mentor to Lindsey and Laurie (she’s also apart of this group of witches called The Sisterhood), and Serenity and Chaos are villains. Chaos wants to take over the world and Serenity wants to become the world’s princess.
Cir tells Laurie that Lindsey is destined to save both humans and witches from Chaos, but Laurie thinks that Lindsey is too weird to be the savior and doesn’t want anything to do with her. Lindsey overhears this conversation on her way home from school. After that incident, she sees Laurie fighting with Serenity and she jumps in. By doing this, she gets hit by one of Serenity’s spells and becomes a witch too. Cir introduces Lindsey to the other witches, and it goes on from there. Towards the end of the book, Lindsey becomes more confident as well as social, her, Cir, and Laurie become friends, and the world is saved from Chaos. There were other characters like Lindsey’s parents and Cir’s parents, but they didn’t leave that much of an impact. Cir’s parents were being controlled by Chaos and the conflict ended as soon as it started. They took Serenity’s powers and Cir helped them wipe her memory because they thought that she didn’t deserve the same fate as Chaos. As for Lindsey’s parents, they were just there. They weren’t interesting to me at all, especially the mom.
Overall, the book is predictable and a little bit cliché. The dialogue didn’t feel natural, and I noticed that a lot of phrases were repeatedly used like Laurie flipping her long hair over her shoulder. My least favorite characters are Laurie, Chaos, and Serenity. Laurie’s behavior in the beginning annoyed me and even though she befriended Lindsey, I still did not like her. Chaos and Serenity were just weak, generic villains and because of that, they irritated me. I think this book should’ve been aimed towards a younger crowd like those who are just starting with chapter books. Maybe, a child would find this book enjoyable because of the magical elements, but it’s one I will not recommend. There are much better fantasy books
for tweens to enjoy.