Although this was a really well written book I didn’t find myself immersed in the world building. The characters we easy to like, but I didn’t see much character development in general.

Harry Potter meets Hunger Games meets Maze Runner. It was fine. Interesting enough. It just felt a bit aslow and failed to get me invested in the characters or storyline. I don’t plan to finish the series.

It takes a little time to get into, but I found myself hooked about a third of the way in and from there it was a pretty quick/fun read. I like the magic system and Rocio and Finn have a strong dynamic. Overall, it didn't blow me away, but it was a solid quick read with some interesting points, so I'll consider picking up the next one to see if it gets ever better from there!

This was a really fun book! After the initial slow hurdle and world building, the action picks up quite a bit. I really love Megan Crewe's writing.

In an alternate present day, some people are born with magical abilities but most are not. The magical previously kept their powers a secret, but years ago they revealed themselves in order to help protect the world. There are magical academies around the country where there is a higher concentration of magical people as well as tutorials in less populated (or less prestigious) areas. When a magical person is 16, they receive a letter from the Circle informing them whether or not they have been Chosen to go to the magical university. If they are not Chosen, they have two options: they can be Dampered (their magical ability reduced to a very small amount) or they can declare for the Mages' Exam, a series of tests to see if they can earn their spot in university. These tests are very difficult and dangerous; many do not make it past every test, and people die every year attempting to pass the Exam. Of those who make it to the end, the Circle chooses several Champions to move on to University, and everyone else is burned out, losing their magical abilities completely. This year, Finnegan Lockwood, a young man from a prominent old-magic family, and Rocio Lopez, a young woman with impressive power from a new-magic family, find themselves in the same group trying to endure the Exam. The experience is more than they were expecting, and they find themselves growing closer as they work their way through each step of the exam.

This book is a mix of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games with a dash of Ender's Game and The Maze Runner thrown in. It got pretty intense at times, but it was very engaging and hard to put down. It switches between Finn and Rocio's points of view, so you get to know each of them pretty well, and they are both great protagonists. You really root for them to make it through each of the awful tests. Minimal language but some pretty gruesome and violent moments. If you've survived The Hunger Games, this isn't anything you can't handle, but it's definitely not for the faint of heart. This is the first of a trilogy, but the story does resolve; it's not a cliffhanger-until-the-next-book trilogy. I'm definitely interested in reading the rest, though! I can't wait to see what Rocio and Finn get up to next. Thanks to NetGalley for the free ebook.

A magical hunger games, where our two protagonists enter the Exam to prove their worth and magical ability, but find that not all is as it seems!

I really enjoyed Ruthless Magic! It definitely exceeded all my expectations.

Between the character dynamics, story build, it was beyond fascinating. I really enjoyed the political driven agenda, caste system and the characters reactions to the situations. I highly recommend this read!

I DNF'd this one at 13%

I shortly share my thoughts about why I DNF'd, it contains some small spoilers.

I was quite enjoying this book, until at 13% a side character killed one of her pet rats to make a point. Sadly I lost interest in continuing the book after that scene. Animal cruelty is one of my pet peeves in books and as I have had pet rats that scene hit me extra hard and I couldn't wrap my head around that someone would willingly kill one of their own pet rats.

Besides that it seemed like a great blend of dystopian elements and magic. I didn't quite get Finn's motivations for joining the exam and it seemed quite wrong they didn't tell mages more about it. I liked how the two main characters are basically opposites with Finn coming from an old magic family, but having little magical talent while Rocio came form a new magic family and had lots of magical talent. I can't say much more about the part I read. it seemed solidly written. It didn't fully pull me in yet, but it was enjoyable enough so far. Until I read that scene with the rat and just decided to DNF it as I wasn't sure if I would enjoy the rest of the book if it had any more dark scenes like that.

I'm ages late with giving feedback to this book. Unfortunately, it didn't quite worked well for me. I couldn't connect with the characters and the storyline was confusing. Hence I stopped reading it about halfway through.

The synopsis to this story sounded very intriguing. However, I struggled with this novel. I could not connect to the characters at all, and the world-building was very confusing.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately it’s not the book for me. DNF @ 12%.

Thank you so much for allowing me to read and review your titles.
I do appreciate it and continue to review books that I get the chance to read.
Thanks again!

I have tried to read this book a couple of times now, and I couldn't get wrapped up in the story. I'm a big mood reader, so I'm not sure when I'll get around to reading this book. But it does still sound interesting, and I'm sure people would really like it!

Ruthless Magic is a book I’ve heard of before, but I can’t quite put my finger on how or when or why. It’s all about teen mages who now need to take a vicious exam in order to keep their magic. The exam sounds a little bit Hunger Games like, but also like the competition in the Wizards of Waverly Place film.

Rocio and Finn are two of the entrants, and I assume they will be a couple. They have very different backgrounds and I’m hoping this is discussed between them at some point. Rocio definitely feels like the character I’ll be more interested in story-wise though.

First impressions:
The world we’re in is a future America where mages have come out of hiding. We’re mainly set in New York, which is familiar ground but we’re set predominately within the magic community. This shows of families of old magic, how Granduncle Raymond was able to pull strings for Finn, and how there’s prejudices against “new magic” people. This plays off similar to muggleborns in Harry Potter.

In order for anyone magical to attend the North American Confederation of Mages they must be chosen or they will be dampened. It’s assumed that most legacies or old magic are automatically chosen, and shown that new magic’s are often sent to be dampened despite high skill due to suspcions they’ll turn against the confederation. There’s the ability to opt for the exam which will allow you to be “chosen” if you were selected to be dampened. However, the exam can be vicious and this pulls us into the books plotline.

Ruthless magic focuses a lot around it’s characters, and there’s even more introduced just before the enter the exam. I said Hunger Games-esque when I read the blurb, and it’s a similar cast of characters but with two POVs.

First we have Finn Lockwood who is old magic but not very good at it. He enters the exam after a bit of a tantrum about nepotism, and he wants to prove his magical prowess to everyone but most importantly, himself. His friend who is new magic but got declined from the school is a lot better than him, but also in the exam. I enjoyed how this immediately shows him this difference between old and new magic, and it displays a tension as even she tells him he’s wrong for giving up his assured place.

Rocio on the other hand is highly skilled at magic but is new magic. Her brother was similar and ended up dying during the exam in a previous year. This give Rocio a stubborness to do well, but it also gave us as a reader an instant knowledge of how dangerous the exam can be.

Overall it’s a pretty quick read, and reads more urban fantasy. I managed to read 18% in an hour and defintely wanted to read more.

[Will update when completed review - Was part of SPFBO Reads series]

Ruthless Magic can best be described as The Hunger Games meets Harry Potter. It’s set in a magical world where corruption is rife, and those in power are determined to maintain the status quo.
At sixteen, everyone who has magical abilities has to be assessed by the North American Mages Federation. A chosen few are selected to keep their magic, and are admitted to college. Everyone else has heir magic destroyed, unless they choose to participate in Mages Exam to prove themselves worthy of keeping their magic. Over the course of five days on an island, they have to survive numerous assassination attempts. Lots of kids die violently on page, and completing exam doesn’t mean you get to keep magic. It’s also, somehow, a closely guarded secret, which I found hard to believe. How could no one notice all these kids dying?
I wasn’t completely sure how magic system worked, only that Finn had been taught to use specific phrases from books, and Rocio had more of an intuitive connection to magic and used songs and lullabies. The worldbuilding in general fell a bit short. I didn’t have much of a grasp on the setting, or the background of the world.
I thought the execution wasn’t as smooth as it could have been, and while the characters were okay, I did struggle to connect with them, so I wasn’t as invested in their success. On the whole, a decent book.

Considering my love for the hunger games books, I thought I would love this book without question. And I did! I loved the magic element of it and it kept me wanting to keep reading to find out more!

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Any quotes I use are from an unpublished copy and may not reflect the finished product.

I really liked Ruthless Magic! It felt a little like The Hunger Games, but with mages and more secrecy. In The Hunger Games, President Snow and the Capital wanted to make a spectacle of the participants, so all of Panem witnessed the brutality of the Games. In Ruthless Magic, the rest of the world is blind to what the North American Confederation of Mages is up to, so they can do whatever they want to those who elect to take the Mages' Exam. People have died over the years, and no one is ever told how or why. It's just accepted, which is bananas! More often than not, the families aren't even given their bodies.

Both Rocio and Finn were excellent characters, and I found myself relating to them in different ways. Rocio has had to work for everything in her life, while Finn has been given every opportunity whether it was deserved or not. He doesn't realize how much people have coddled him until he earns a spot at the college and his best friend does not. It's then that he sees how flawed the system is, and chooses to try and prove he's worth his salt when it comes to using magic. Finn has lofty goals, and honestly wants to do his part to help people, but his magic is weaker than most. His good ideas take longer to execute, and often require more of his focus and energy than it conceivably would for the others.

Rocio was the opposite. She had the talent but not the training. She isn't from one of the original families, so they view her magic as untested and a liability. They don't want someone like her tarnishing their reputation, or questioning the way they've been doing things for years. Unbeknownst to everyone else, Rocio has an uncanny connection to the magic, and it's something she can feel on a level no one else can. It's almost like the magic itself interacts with her, so she sees it as another living thing to work with. Everyone else views magic as a tool to be wielded. Her connection gave her a small advantage in the trials, and she did her best to keep everyone in her group safe and alive. She desperately wanted to trust a system that had repeatedly failed her, and I respected her determination in the face of adversity.

The secondary characters were also interesting to read about, but I wanted to know more about their specific backgrounds. They all chose to take the Mages' Exam for a reason, just like Rocio and Finn, and we weren't always told what those reasons were. I also wanted to know more about Rocio's family and her life with her brother before.

I wasn't always 100% sure how the magic worked, only that it did. Finn was taught to use a certain language and specific texts to harness the magic, while Rocio used old lullabies and songs from her childhood. The differences were major, which was briefly touched on towards the end of the book, but I still wasn't sure why some people were able to use magic and others weren't. Where does the magic come from? Questions like this might be answered in later books, but I wish it had been expanded on a little throughout this one, since it was a such a prominent part of the story.

Ruthless Magic was also a lot darker than I was expecting. The Mages' Exam was BRUTAL, and not everyone made it out alive. Even the people that did survive until the end weren't necessarily named Champion. They still have their magic forcibly removed, despite enduring the tortures of the trials. People died in horrible ways, and the author doesn't skim over those deaths. We're told very clearly how they happen (also very The Hunger Games-like), and some of those descriptions will stay with me forever. I'm still not sure how the truth of the Exam hadn't leaked beyond the borders of the island and its participants.Someone had to tell or slip-up over the years, right? How could you not say anything about people trying to kill you in extremely extravagant ways over the course of 5 days? How could you not talk about the horrors you saw end endured?

Rising and Araya were amazing narrators, too. I was so engrossed in the story and thought they did a wonderful job bringing the characters to life. The story was good on its own, but they added an additional layer of authenticity. I highly recommend listening to this one if you get a chance! Wonderfully relatable characters, life-and-death experiences, and a setting that will make you cringe, rage, and cheer for the fictional people you've just met. (★★★⋆☆)

The story is very narrow. We get little sense of what the world looks like. What we do know is that even if you are born with magic Big Brother can take it away. The powers that rule give an illusion of choice but it is only to keep people from revolting. In that way it is very similar to The Hunger Games. Just because there is magic and school does NOT make it anything like Harry Potter.

It really does have such promise. I liked the characters and their personalities but not the execution.

I started book 2 before writing this review in the hope that our story would improve. I do not recommend this to my friends.

<i>*This book was given to me by NetGalley in return for an honest review*</i>

So I didn't hate it, but I also didn't love it. I had a rough time connecting with the characters and the magic system was a little confusing. I will give this another go as I think the main premise is good and maybe I was not in the right headspace for this book at the time?

Way too predictable. Lots of violence and corrupt leaders, so pretty much America itself. I had to force myself to keep reading hoping it would get better and it does but still not enough for me to want to follow the characters or story any further. If you have never read the Hunger Games you might like this more than I did. Nothing new here except a little bit in the end about the concept of magic in this world, otherwise very ho hum.