This review, without spoilers, is for the whole five-book series.

Cassandra Clare is an author who became known as an amateur writer through her Harry Potter fanfiction. When she started writing professionally, she wrote the Shadowhunters series, and many readers who were familiar with her amateur writing felt that she had used a thinly-disguised version of the three main characters of her Draco Dormiens fanfiction trilogy: Jace is her Draco Malfoy, Simon is Harry Potter and Clairy is Hermione Granger (not bookish as Hermione, true, but she plays a similar role in the love triangle).

Anyway, given all the antecedents, it's an odd choice that when she writes a brand new series, in collaboration with Holly Black, she'd choose to write about a boy who finds out he's a wizard, is invited to a wizards' boarding school, finds out his mother was murdered by an evil magician as she tried to protect him as a baby, becomes friends with two other students, a boy and a girl, and finds out that his destiny is linked to that of the evil magician. I mean, it's an odd choice because given her background you'd think that she would prefer to distance herself from more Harry Potter associations. And even if that's not a consideration, when you write a middle grade fantasy series with that premise you are inevitably inviting people to compare with Harry Potter, and that's a tough act to follow.

Having said all that, let me stress that despite the similarities in the premise, this is not at all plagiarism of Harry Potter. The story is original and follows its own path, not Harry Potter's. And I rather enjoyed it for what it is. It is not as good as Harry Potter, but then, J. K. Rowling's series was so wildly successful for a reason.

The whimsical worldbuilding of Harry Potter is not here. The Magisterium series is inferior in that way. Also, one of the reasons Harry Potter was so successful is the characterization, and how easy it is to really get to know those characters, put yourself in their place and live the story from their point of view. Magisterium is not as good as that. I ended up quite fond of Callum, but I don't think I know Tamara and Aaron quite as well as I know Hermione and Ron.

On the other hand, the story is similarly epic, and the character arc Callum goes through is rather interesting and original. Unfortunately, I cannot discuss it without massive spoilers, but it's more morally-ambiguous and less black-and-white than Harry Potter.

The five books are quite thin, little more than 200 pages each. The series does not really go from middle grade to young adult as Harry Potter does, but remains close to middle grade tone all the time, although it can also be enjoyed by older readers.

My favorite book was the fourth, but in general I did enjoy the ride. ( )

Unterhaltsam, aber mehr auch nicht. (Vielleicht bin ich auch einfach inzwischen zu alt für Bücher ab 12 Jahren.) Viele Wendungen waren vorhersehbar, die Protagonisten sind aber stimmig, auch im Verhältnis zum Alter. (Die Tipps für Jungs von Jasper sind der Knaller *lach) Mal sehen, wie es jetzt weitergeht... ( )

(holy f*cking shit)

Presto la recensione... ( )

3.5 stars. The ending had me crying but this book was not as good as the 1st two. ( )

This was a good read. Quick, entertaining and light. Storting to look like a rip off from HP, but a little more elementary than a ya book. Looks and reads more 5~6 grades.