Given all the buzz, I thought I was in for a treat. I wasn't. The passive heroine had no path of her own, whether at the start with her graduate studies, or through her victim journey in magic land. The over-the-top tropes and lazy writing threatened to cause permanent eye injury from all the rolling they invoked. 
 Even her eventual "empowerment" through magic was handed to her on a platter, and wasn't something that felt earned (or interesting).