In a Nutshell: 
 A musical starring bird-people ends up being surprising dull and anticlimactic. 
 The Elaborate Explanation: 
 Hmmmm...where do I even begin? If I am being completely honest what first drew my interest was the cover. I know that you shouldn't judge a book based on its cover, but, um, well, I do. I love simplistic covers, they tend to draw my eye more. So when I saw this cover on Tumblr I knew that I had to find out what it was about. So after reading the synopsis my interest was peaked. People living in the sky? I wanted to read it so badly! 
 Magonia is unlike any other book I have read before. The mythology was so new and refreshing. It makes me wish that other YA authors would venture out and write about other mythologies than the same recycled material. The plot was very intriguing and I loved how the book didn't have the "insta-love" I read so often in YA novels. 
 The plot weaved together ancient myths form the 1600s (and earlier) with Headley's own imaginative twists. She expanded on an already existing but underdeveloped myth. The existing stories surrounding Magonia (the actual myth, not the YA book) are few and far between. Headley acknowledges the resources she used and expanded upon in the Author's Note and it makes me want to read more about those who sail the skies. 
 Headley is able to describe her world beautifully. She is able to create vivid imagery for the batsails, stormsharks, squallwhales, and birdpeople in the book. This is a book for those who like to read about songs and magic and sailing and the sky and discovering what home actually means. 
 Magonia had everything going for it (beautiful imagery, decent world-building), but yet I still couldn't seem to get into it. I thoroughly enjoyed the first third of the novel, but after that it fell a bit flat for me. I don't think that I have ever wanted to like a book so much before, but I just couldn't. Actually, to be honest I was bored most of the time. 
 Part of the reason I didn't love Magonia was because Headley's writing was inconsistent. Some of the sentences would be short and choppy and others long and full of imagery. Sometimes the words took shape like a poem and other times they were in a descriptive chunk like a normal novel. It took a while to get use to it. Aza was also inconsistent. At times she was a snarky teenage girl and other times she would be very passive. For a character who was so defiant she was very trusting of people. 
 Jason is my favorite character of the book. He is insanely smart and uses pi to comfort him. It made my inner-nerd sing. Although his character didn't seem very realistic, I still found him very enjoyable to read. 
 Headley wrote Magonia from two POVs: Jason and Aza. However, in the 30 chapter long book we only hear Jason's POV for seven of those chapters. I wish that Headley had done a better job of alternating their POVs or included more form Jason or less of Aza to make it more balanced. 
 I'm not sure what it was about the plot that I didn't enjoy, but there was just something that wasn't clicking. It wasn't a bad read by any means, but it was kind of boring. It didn't sweep me up off my feet. Honestly, it's a pretty forgettable read. It wasn't great, it wasn't bad, it was just there. I'm not sure if Magonia will have a sequel or not, and if it does have one, I' probably won't read it. The book was nice, a great summer read, just probably not a book I am going to reread. Although this will probably be a book that I will still recommend because of its originality. 
 Magonia had humor, world-building, good dialogue, nice descriptions, creative, and Headley has a unique writing style ((({ }))). I just really, really wish I could figure out which part I didn't enjoy. Yes Magonia has originality, but I wasn't blown away by it to warrant anything higher than a 3 star rating. I tried to like it, but I just didn't. 
 ***TRIGGER WARNINGS: death, enslavement, compelled to do something against will (through song)