So You Want to be a Wizard

This is a book I started well over a year ago. I read half of it in 2012, and then because I was already half way through, decided I wasn't going to use it for 2013's Women of Genre Fiction challenge. That meant I ended up putting off the second half for way too long and I struggled a bit to figure out what was going on when I came back to it.

It's also pitched a bit younger than anything else I've read recently, so I'm not completely sure how to judge it, but on the whole it was readable and imaginative.

it's the story of a slightly downtrodden, bookish girl, who finds a careers advice book called So You Want to Be a Wizard? and sets out to become one, making new friends, finding new confidence, and saving the world along the way.

The trouble with magic is that it's hard to measure. If anything is possible, then why is one thing harder than another? What are the limits and restrictions? What is the cost? How perilous is the peril, if you can always magic yourself out of trouble?

I'm not sure this book really provided good answers to those questions. The solutions often were just more magic.

But it was mostly fun getting there, and I might well continue with the series. I thought this first book was a solid 3/5.