Sibylline by Melissa de la Cruz

The quick cut: Three friends who are rejected from the magical college of their choice decide to steal a magical education while working on the campus.

A real review:

Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers for providing the arc for an honest review.

Getting into the college of your choosing can feel like a high pressure situation, especially if you have your heart set on one in particular. For Raven, Atticus, and Dorian, this is the case when they're rejected from Sibylline and decide to steal an education while working there.

Raven, Atticus, and Dorian are friends who all want to go to the Ivy League magical college named Sibylline. So when they all receive rejection letters, they're devastated to not be getting the education they want. Then they come up with the next best option: work on campus so they can steal books and learn about magic themselves. Will a stolen education be enough?

The premise is interesting here and having it be with three friends definitely improves it. Each one has a unique role at the college, with different skills and people that they work with. Together, they get their hands on books and see that not everything is as it seems at Sibylline. There's a dark secret buried on that campus and their activities only bring it closer to the surface.

This book has a fantasy setting, but the pace and plot development of a thriller. It's a good combination that makes it feel unique and different from most fantasy stories out there.

All three lead characters share the narrating from chapter to chapter. It's used so often in books recently that it can feel unnecessary. Here though it does play a vital role with the plot. It also allows you to better get to know the characters individually.

I enjoyed the book once finished and clearly there's space left for a sequel. It did feel quite rushed in the last quarter of the book to make all the plot ends weave together. It did take away from the story a bit.

A fun magical thriller about stealing an education.

My rating: 4 out of 5