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A review by yuna
Dark Wizard by Jeffe Kennedy
dark
tense
medium-paced
3.5
Liked parts of this. It's very readable, but by the end I also don't feel a tug to see how everything goes. I would read more from the author though. It's very much the first in a trilogy and does a lot of setup.
Nic annoyed me for a lot of the book. I get that she's very unhappy about being a familiar, and rightfully so as the wizard-familiar power dynamic is super abusive and lends a very dark element to the worldbuilding and character relationships. Some of the scenes between Nic's parents in particular are skin-crawly gross. I appreciate that Nic does have moments where she realizes how immersed in Convocation society/politics/life she's been and that it's a personal failing that she's never questioned the problematic aspects of it, especially those that occur in her personal life via her parents. But she spends a large amount of the book willfully ignoring and/or refusing to dialogue with Gabriel despite him repeatedly demonstrating how he has no interest in perpetuating a broken system. And she knows this! His lack of Convocation education is part of why she picks him for her Betrothal Trials in the first place. It's understandable at first why she's so hesitant about him, but it drags on and got tedious for me once he kept showing her time after time that he's not like the wizards she knows. Or that she would've been. I'm side-eyeing how quickly it gets handwaved off the discussion of what type of wizard she would've been. She bitches about the plight of being a familiar a lot (again, rightfully so), but never turns that mirror back on herself when she was *all set* to be a wizard and accept that status quo because she would've benefited from it.
It's an interesting setting and I liked the light touch of how the magic is layered throughout it. Gabriel is probably a bit too perfect in that he's such a white knight with his idealism but..it's kinda necessary when the other main character is decidedly not.
Vale is the GOAT. Protect him at all costs.
Nic annoyed me for a lot of the book. I get that she's very unhappy about being a familiar, and rightfully so as the wizard-familiar power dynamic is super abusive and lends a very dark element to the worldbuilding and character relationships. Some of the scenes between Nic's parents in particular are skin-crawly gross. I appreciate that Nic does have moments where she realizes how immersed in Convocation society/politics/life she's been and that it's a personal failing that she's never questioned the problematic aspects of it, especially those that occur in her personal life via her parents. But she spends a large amount of the book willfully ignoring and/or refusing to dialogue with Gabriel despite him repeatedly demonstrating how he has no interest in perpetuating a broken system. And she knows this! His lack of Convocation education is part of why she picks him for her Betrothal Trials in the first place. It's understandable at first why she's so hesitant about him, but it drags on and got tedious for me once he kept showing her time after time that he's not like the wizards she knows. Or that she would've been. I'm side-eyeing how quickly it gets handwaved off the discussion of what type of wizard she would've been. She bitches about the plight of being a familiar a lot (again, rightfully so), but never turns that mirror back on herself when she was *all set* to be a wizard and accept that status quo because she would've benefited from it.
It's an interesting setting and I liked the light touch of how the magic is layered throughout it. Gabriel is probably a bit too perfect in that he's such a white knight with his idealism but..it's kinda necessary when the other main character is decidedly not.
Vale is the GOAT. Protect him at all costs.