Review: The Last Magician

Title: The Last Magician
Author: Lisa Maxwell
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Source: Library
Release Date: July 18, 2017
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Stop the Magician. Steal the book. Save the future.

In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she’s been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta’s training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

Review:

I loved the plot in this story. It reminded me of the heist in Six of Crows, but less intense and complex.

I had a hard time getting into the story at the beginning, because there were so many characters! The narrative kept switching between different characters, and some had similar names, or were referred to as their first and last names alternately so I thought they were different people. It was especially confusing because there were a few different gang leaders who ran the city. At about a quarter of the way through the book I had everyone sorted out.

I loved the time travel aspects of the story. Though there wasn’t a lot of switching between different time periods, Esta’s actions in the past altered the future. She could see that from the way that the newspaper clipping that she brought from the future changed when different things happened.

The ending was fantastic. There were a bunch of surprises that I didn’t see coming. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book!

What to read next:

• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
  
  

• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
  
  

Have you read The Last Magician? What did you think of it?