Magic's Child (Magic or Madness Trilogy) [Paperback]

Justine Larbalestier (Author)

Book Description

Series: Magic or Madness Trilogy | Publication Date: March 27, 2008

In the third and final installment in the Magic or Madness trilogy, only Reason can find answers within her family’s magic to save everyone that matters most to her.

Magic’s Child is the fantastically gripping conclusion to a trilogy that launched to multiple starred reviews, earning spots on the 2006 BBYA final list, and the Locus 2005 and 2006 Recommended Reading Lists.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–As the concluding volume of this trilogy opens, Reason Cansino is fifteen years old, pregnant, and magic. In the world that Larbalestier has created, magic users have a choice–to use it and die young, or not to use it and go mad. However, at the conclusion of the previous volume, Magic Lessons (Penguin, 2006), Reason was given a different, more powerful type of magic. Her new abilities begin to change her and her unborn child, drawing her deeper into the world of magic and farther from her friends and family. Reason and her soon to-be-born child both have aspects of the title magic's child, adding complexity to the book's themes of identity, choice, and power. Fans of the first two volumes will be glad to rejoin Reason and her friends in New York City and in Australia, though new readers may be confused by references to past events. Reason is a sympathetic and conflicted protagonist, and her struggles are fully realized and compelling. This is a strong conclusion to a compelling trilogy, and the epilogue offers a suitable twist and perhaps a chance to rejoin Reason in the future.–Beth L. Meister, Pleasant View Elementary School, Franklin, WI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Previously in the Magic or Madness trilogy, a godlike ancestor has made 15-year-old Reason immune to magic's double-edged sword (use it and face early death, or abstain and go "bat-shit crazy"). However, plenty of other dilemmas keep her occupied in this, the series finale. Pregnant and rejected by the baby's father, Reason faces concerns about the future and untrustworthy elders who covet her new powers. Throughout, magic emerges as a potent emblem of personal identity, as Reason and friends Jay-Tee and Tom, each speaking in turn, express joy in their abilities and horror at losing them, like "being all three-dimensional and colorful and waking up 2-D and gray." In the end, the story doesn't quite hang together, hampered by too many incidental scenes and rehashings of the series' central conflicts. However, the inventive premise and amiable teen characters, whose immediate language brings everything down to earth ("How the hell do you tell someone that you're magic?"), give reason to hope for more from Larbalestier as her storytelling powers mature. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Razorbill (March 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595141812
• ISBN-13: 978-1595141811
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #662,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I live in in Sydney, Australia with my husband, Scott Westerfeld. We're both writers. Many of our books are written far from home, because it's even more fun writing in places where you don't know anyone...

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Conclusion and a Beginning, May 20, 2007

By 

Little Willow (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Magic's Child (Magic Or Madness) (Hardcover)

Australian author Justine Larbalestier's first novel, Magic or Madness, challenged Reason - that is, to say, a teenage girl named Reason who spent her life with her cheery mother, until her lovely mother went a little mad. Reason realized that the stories her mom told her were true. Magic exists, and it runs through the veins of all of the women in her family. Either they use it and die young or they repress it and go mad.

Her grandmother, who is depicted as a villain in all of her mother's stories, takes Reason in when she has no other place to go. Reason then meets her gran's neighbor, a boy her own age, and Jay-Tee, who lives in New York - which magically appears outside of her grandmother's door. The story continued in Magic Lessons, when the stakes were raised and the powers of the main characters tested.

Now the final chapter in the Magic or Madness trilogy is here: Magic's Child. The title itself is a huge spoiler, obviously. I recommend that you read the trilogy in the proper order for the ultimate impact.

Each character gets his or her moment in the spotlight here as the story bounces back and forth between locations and viewpoints. I enjoyed Reason's travels around the world, confirming the presence of other doors and introducing her to another generation of magic-users. (Can you say spinoff?) I found myself liking Jay-Tee more and more as the story progressed. Even Sarafina has a memorable scene in which she creates butterflies. Such a childlike innocence about her then, making her greedy demeanor and evil actions only a short while later all the more scary.

Magic's Child pushes Reason's sanity and strength to the brink. Will she go past the point of no return? Has she any reason to stick around? Find out by reading the book, then share the magic of Reason's world and Larbalestier's writing with other fantasy fans.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, June 1, 2007

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Magic's Child (Magic Or Madness) (Hardcover)

At the start of this wonderful conclusion to a great fantasy trilogy, Reason Cansino is a lot of things most fifteen year olds aren't. She's magic. She's pregnant. And she may or may not be entirely human.

In this continuation of Reason's story, she is falling more and more deeply into the strange, ancient, and inhuman power given to her by Raul Cansino. She is becoming more and more scarily powerful--but she's giving up her humanity (and maybe that of her unborn child) for that power. She won't die young like so many magic-wielders who use their powers unwisely, and neither will she go crazy and end up in the loony-bin with her mother.

But is giving up her humanity worth it?

MAGIC'S CHILD is strictly a continuation of an already begun story. It is not a story within itself, really, and, as such, should only be picked up by those who have read the first two parts of the trilogy (Magic or Madness (Magic or Madness Trilogy) and Magic Lessons (Magic or Madness Trilogy)). If you haven't read those, well, they're highly recommended, as well!

Justine Larbalestier's third installment in the MAGIC OR MADNESS trilogy is a good conclusion to the story, one that will have readers racing through it as fast as possible. It was a little bit open-ended for my taste, but not in a terrible cliffhanger way. It was either a less than fabulous last chapter or a fabulous way to leave the door open for another book set in this universe; who knows? Either way, the characters, dialogue, and style of MAGIC'S CHILD are all great, it's well worth reading, and I'm looking forward to reading more from Justine Larbalestier.

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely perfect ending!!!, August 3, 2007

By 

H. Tinkham "witch_godess" (IN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Magic's Child (Magic Or Madness) (Hardcover)

This was a great way to end te series. A tantalizing taste of what magic could be like if it existed. 5 stars, and this authour is awesome. I will read anything else she comes out with.