The more adult/realistic take on the "teenage wizard school" trope was an interesting idea, but ultimately my dislike for the main characters grew too much for me to fully enjoy the book. Quinton's experience throughout the book seems to be summed up by the wise words "You can't always get what you want" but never seems to get to the "you'll just might find, you get what you need" point, making his near constant disappointment with life frustrating for the reader. A theme that runs throughout the book is how Quinton and the others view non-magical people. A minor gripe, but I personally kept getting annoyed at the condescending nature which Quinton and the physical kids looked down on those not gifted in magic. "How hard their lives must be" "How can they find purpose in life?" Considering every reader of this book is in reality and therefore doesn't have magical powers, the disdain they show for basically that audience was extremely irksome.