The Iron Trial

Friends and Foe.
Danger and Magic.
Death and Life.
Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.
Not Callum Hunt. Hw wants to fail.
All his life, Callum has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.
So he tries his best to do his worst - and fails at failing.
Now the Magisterium awaits him. It's a place that's both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future.
The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come...  -excerpt from book cover.

The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare is about a boy who was to fail a test in order not to be admitted in the Magisterium. When I got news that two of my favourite YA writers are working on a series together, I was super excited. If you didn't know, Holly Black wrote many good series such as Spiderwick Chronicles and Cassandra Clare is the author of Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices. Once the book was out, I tried to get the book ASAP but it took sometime before I got my delivery.

I truly enjoyed the book and I feel it is a good start/introduction to the world in the story and also preparing the readers for more of the series. If not mistaken this would be a five book series. I cannot wait for more and I highly anticipate that it will get better and better. I could not find any parts that distinctively tell it's written by Holly or Cassandra. The writing flowed so well, it was just like one person written it instead of two. I think they both have great ideas and this book is not like Harry Potter series at all. 

When it comes to magic school, people tend to relate it to Harry Potter but I have to say besides studying magic, everything else is totally different.  Even the methods to conjure magic is totally different from Harry Potter, although the combination of mages form a group of three is similar but it's sort of a requirement for their training. The characters of the book are so so different from Harry Potter which I truly enjoyed. I really love the main character of the book, he has many struggles and thus it turned him into the person he is now. I love the growth of the main characters too because as time passed and certain things happening they changed.

The plot twist was really well done and not easy to anticipate although one element of the story was easy to guess, I think it was the intention of the authors in the first place. I think the plots were really smooth and well timed. The only complaint I have is the length of the book, how I wished it was longer and more could be written on their process of learning magic or more interactions with other students. But overall, it's a great start of the series where it contains some mystery that will slowly unfold throughout the series. I hope the next book will come soon as I cannot wait. I highly recommend this to readers who loved Harry Potter, magic and fantasy.