Firespell: Best appreciated by its target audience

Firespell by Chloe Neill

There are YA books that translate well to an adult audience, and there are those that are best appreciated by their actual target audience. I suspect Firespell is one of the latter. I found it an average read, but I think I’d have really liked it at the age of thirteen or so.

Case in point: Here is how magic works in the Dark Elite series. If someone has magical talent, that talent manifests at puberty. From puberty to the age of twenty-five, the magic is a really cool enhancement. But after the age of twenty-five, the person must give up magic, or else it becomes a corrupting (and addictive) force. The people who don’t give up their magic, called Reapers, have to steal the life force of young people in order to keep exercising their powers.

I keep thinking about this as a metaphor, and about how well it fits the way I saw the world when I was a teenager. I would look at adults back then and it always seemed that some of them had given up some essential “spark” they’d once had, and that others got a kick out of making sure none of the younger generation got to have any fun.

Moving on to the plot, Firespell is a novel in the “teen goes to boarding school and discovers magic” vein. Lily, the heroine, is sent to a posh girls’ boarding school in Chicago while her parents travel to Germany for research. She quickly finds a friend in quirky Scout, whose mysterious nocturnal excursions arouse Lily’s curiosity. She makes enemies, too, in the form of a trio of “mean girls.” When she learns that Scout’s secret is that she’s part of a team of magical adepts, her life changes forever…

The friendships are great; I really loved Scout and sweet, nerdy Lesley. I mostly liked Lily, too, though she had a moment about halfway through the book where she did something both unwise and insensitive, and had me mad at her for a while. Another strength of the book is Chloe Neill’s portrayal of Chicago. It’s one of my favorite cities and I had a strong sense of being there while reading the book.

There’s a romance, too, though it’s a bit skimpy. Lily seems mostly interested in Jason because he’s good-looking, and the two of them spend way too much time snubbing each other. An older reader may find this annoying.

Firespell is just a beginning; Neill introduces a lot of ideas and doesn’t explore them all here. For that, you’ll have to continue on to the next book, Hexbound.