Considering how often Yelena was injured, captured, and beat-to-a-pulp in this follow-up to Poison Study - I felt this picture summed it up best: 
 There are considerably more DOH! moments in this book, as opposed to the zero in the last book. Quite a few times, I felt myself wanting to smack some sense into Yelena. Especially toward the beginning of the book, she didn't seem to be her reliable calculating and resourceful old self. 
 Instead of reading, like I did with Poison Study, I listened to the audiobook for Magic Study. The narrator was good, although not the best. She had great inflections and tone to her voice and never became tiresome. 
 However, I found her choice of individual voices a great source of amusement. Some males had a distinct femininity and some females sounded much too masculine. There wasn't always consistency with accents as well. 
 Two of the side characters, Bain and Reyad had what sounded like a mix of Irish and Scottish accents with Bain sounding much too feminine. I actually thought he was a woman for quite a while. Valek, Yelena's love interest, had a slight female sounding voice as well with a mix of a British and Australian accent. Cahil, Yelena's frenemy, came off as a surfer-slash-stoner. The student Gelsie sounded just like the horse Kiki. That's right. A talking horse!! (who I love!) But it's not what you might think. She's no Mister Ed. And Irys, Yelena's mentor - Well, she had about as feminine a voice as Al Green. Like a Russian body building Cher (now that's a mental image). Ari and Janco, however, sounded exactly how I felt they should. In fact, it made me want to listen to Poison Study just to hear some of their hilarious exchanges. 
 The voices also got me thinking about how the narrator decides who gets what voice. Do they consult with the author or just make it up as they go? Do they even read the book first? If memory serves me right, it seems like she started out pronouncing Dax as Dox, then switched halfway through the book. Was she corrected or had she just forgotten how she pronounced his name before? 
 In this book, Yelena refers to her tactics against her foes as her "rush into a situation and hope for the best" method, but I don't think she gives herself enough credit. As her relationships with various new characters progress, she takes on a new role. Team member. Often, she at least seems to be thinking ahead but mostly she relies heavily on others, as opposed to her old self, who trusted and counted on no one. This doesn't come off as a strength or a weakness, she just tends to find herself in need of help more often. All of that is an inevitability with the expanding cast of characters and friends. 
 Valek wasn't in this book nearly as much. I felt their relationship went from "summer lovin" to "you're the that I want" a little too fast. In the Poison Study, their relationship developed slowly. It seemed they were a little too connected in this one. A little more than I believed, at least since it's common knowledge that he would easily kill her if asked to by his Commander. "Oh my love, you're the only one for me. Now come closer, so I can slit your throat because I was commanded to." I didn't get that part of it. 
 I really wished the storyline with Ferda had been completely wrapped up. I was looking forward to a new big bad in Fire Study, because this guy creeps me out. That's the mark a good villain, though. 
 Overall, Maria's prose is lovely. No out of place descriptions or metaphors this time. The character development was decent and mostly believable. This one just didn't draw me in the way the first one did. I felt a lot of disconnect. I am still looking forward to the next, mainly in hopes of more Ari and Janco time! 
 My review for the first book: Poison Study 
 My review for the third book: Fire Study