I just finished Briane Pagel's, Up So Down, yesterday and said it might have been my favorite book of 2013. So then I pick this up and read it and am stunned to find out that I love this one just as much. Yes, THIS might be my favorite book of the year. What's going on here? 
 Now, this a radically different novel that Pagel's was. His was that literary type of tale. Drama and characters and all that yummy stuff. This one, this is a YA novel set in a very alternate U.S. with a whole bunch of crazy stuff going on. So the tone and subject matter is so different it's really hard to compare them. I'm just saying, what a weekend for reading I had. 
 Really, all I could think of as I read this novel was: Harry Potter. This is Harry Potter. 
 The thing is, though. This is really, really good. Yes, it's a kid in a school of magic. Yes, he meets Herminine (Yes, I just realized I can't spell her name) and the two of them are capable of so much more together than they are apart. The role of Ron Weasely and Dumbledore is rolled into a single character, Prof Fitch. 
 This Magic school, well, it's one of a half-dozen or so that are spread over the continent - which isn't continent as much as it is an extended archipelago. The map at the beginning of the book explains all that simply enough. And our hero, a kid named Joel, he's got his issues fitting in, and has to overcome tons of adversity, a rotten teacher named... I forget now, I'll just call him Snape... and a series of magical incidents that seem to be taking out the very best students in the school. 
 Look, I'm doing a crappy job of telling this story. I keep bringing up Harry Potter, not to necessarily to accuse this of being a knockoff, but to tell you that this worked for me in much the same way those books did. Yes, I felt like this was as good as a Harry Potter book. 
 And, I'd add, is something I was only reading because I didn't want to go around telling people how much I loved Sanderson's novels and then have to tell those same folks that I didn't read this because I thought it sounded kinda lame. So it took me 7 or 8 months to get around to finally reading. I read Sanderson's Steelheart the week it came out a few months after this one did. 
 This one was better. Shame, I think the other one is the one getting all the praise and adoration. But this is the one I want more of. He does promise that this is going to be a series, well, he promised at least one more. I don't know how many that might turn into. Whatever it is, I really can't wait. I bet it's be a couple of years, which sucks, because I want to read it now. 
 Alright, to sum up. It's awesome, it's very Harry Potterish, I don't care, and, it makes my shortlist of best book of the year. 
 So exciting.