Street Magic

 The second book in the Circle Opens series by Tamora Pierce follows Briar and his teacher Rosethorn into Chammur where they work their Green Magic to help revitalize the "tired" ground. Chammur is a place that has had people living on it for centuries that is built into the rock that surrounds it. It's more than just the farm soil that's tired. 

While traveling through the market, Briar spots a girl shining stones and embowing them with magic. When he asks her about it, she runs. He tries to find her over the next few days while familiarizing himself with the local gangs. Being once part of a gang, he gets rolled into their problems. Between finding Evvy, finding her a teacher, teaching her the basics of stone magic and how to meditate, and the gang wars that surround him, he has his hands full. 

I really enjoyed this book. The differences and difficulties of walking into different cultures is an interesting path Briar leads. 

I enjoyed the simplicity of the text while having a set of complicated characters. The stone mage, Evvy, reminded me a lot of Toph Beifong from Avatar: the Last Air Bender. Both "stone mages" that are hard, firm, and determined. The characters all throughout the series were great, though there seemed to be a lot of them that only got mentioned a very few times, yet still important, but then were quickly gone after a little while (for very good reasons, mind). Many flowed in and out of the story--sometimes making it hard to remember who they were exactly.

I've gotten to really love Briar and his companions (new ones included) and I think that is a signature of Tamora Pierce. She puts so much life and vigor into her characters that they come alive and I want more and more of them.  

This book was also an audiobook that I listened to and it was very well done. I had now qualms with any of them and enjoyed their performances immensely. 

I'll have to get to the 3rd book later because it isn't available at my library currently, but I will get to reading it sooner rather than later. 

Briar's Book

 

The last book in The Circle of Magic was pretty good and rather relevant with today's pandemic and disease controls. 

Briar was once a street rat before he became a mage. But now that he has a handle on his magic, he helps his teacher Rosethorn with making medicine and delivering it to the nearby cities. Once he gets into town he goes to see the other street rats and a bit of his old life. But when he gets into town this time he is led to his friend Flick who has all these blue welts all over her body. He calls down Rosethorn who informs him they have a pandemic on their hands. They are quarantined along with Flick and as the days go on more and more people show up at the hospitals with these blue pox. People are dying with fevers so high that they start hallucinating. Riots happen in the streets while they are inside. Mages and healers are working on finding a cure, but the dead are mounting. 

This book is different than the others. Whereas in the other books, the kids really work together with their magics interwoven, here they are still working together, but still separately. Briar spends so much time away from the girls and works a lot more with Rosethorn (which isn't bad, I really enjoyed their relationship growth). But their communication and conversation is so little and they all seem so busy with other things, there is just a different feel of it. And I'm not so sure I like it. 

I liked how Tamora uses modern medicine in a magical way. Gloves and masks alongside magic and enchantments. Though even with all there magics there are causalities. Which is sad. 

I do feel like so much of the other characters were there doing things because "they have to do something" like Daja making boxes, Tris writing for Crane, and Sandry magicing gloves and masks... As if Tamora was grasping at straws for something for them to do. Almost half thought out or something. I wanted more and for them all to work together again more than just what they did at the end. The ending was supposed to be grand, but I think it fell flat. 

I still really like the idea and potential the next series. But for this own series, I feel let down. So I would need to go on to the next series. So on we go.