Rating: 2/5 
 ***Minor spoilers*** 
 I've been meaning to read this for a month or 2 after it was recommended to me. Because he loved it to much, I had high hopes for this book. It turns out that my hopes were too high because this ended up really disappointing me. 
 Sophie and Josh Newman are twins, living with their aunt in San Francisco while their parents are away. Josh works at a bookstore owned by Nick Fleming. One day, someone named Dee shows up at the bookstore and the twins get their first glimpse at what they would call magic. They are quickly swept into a new world, and Nick Fleming is revealed as Nicholas Flemel, the Alchemyst who discovered the secret of immortal life. However, Dee steals the Codex in Flemel's possession, and without it, he will die. Nicholas and the twins must find a way to recover the codex, or else Nicholas and his wife, Perenelle, will die. 
 This book is labelled as young adult on goodreads but personally, I would label it as middle grade, because the writing just felt like it was meant for younger than young adult. I have nothing against middle grade novels, but I went in expecting a young adult style book, so the writing disappointed me. This probably wouldn't have bothered me as much if I went in expecting middle grade style writing. 
 At first, I thought I would find the book really interesting but I actually found it pretty boring throughout the whole thing. The story didn't really appeal to me and things that should've felt exciting didn't have that effect on me. Another issue I had with this book was the magic. I felt like there were no boundaries on the magic and that you could do absolutely anything. Yes, there were limits on how much a person could use magic, but little to no limit on what could be done with magic. 
 Overall, I found this book disappointing, mostly because I went in expecting a lot out of it. If you're going to read this book, I'd recommend going in without high expectations. I do think that this may be a case of wrong person, wrong book, so if you plan on giving it a try, you may find it much more appealing.