The Magicians of Caprona

 This post originally published March 10, 2010.


Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Published: 1980
Publisher: Harper Collins Children’s Books
Series: Chrestomanci #2
268 pages (paperback)
 
Summary: In an alternate world, Italy was never united as one country and cities such as Florence, Venice and Caprona still exist as city-states. The Montanas and Petrocchis are well-respected families in the city-state of Caprona, for their spell-making abilities. Unfortunately, due to the Montanas and Petrocchis bitter rivalry (which is not unlike Romeo and Juliet) and their refusal to work together, the city of Caprona is slowly losing their virtue and power, which it desperately needs at this time because Venice, Pisa and Florence are planning to wage war against Caprona.

My Thoughts: I love the Chrestomanci series, but unfortunately, I had a rather difficult time engrossing myself with this book. The story and plot is straightforward enough, but I still found it confusing because of the enormous cast of characters, which made it difficult to remember who’s who, and I had trouble understanding the concept of singing-magic in this book. Also, Chrestomanci was more of a cameo in this story than a central figure as he is in the other books in the series, which is another reason why this book did not captivate me as much as it could have, especially since I read it with the expectation of seeing more of Chrestomanci/Christopher. While it’s by no means terrible, this is a book I could easily put down. Some parts of it were fun, but there was an equal number of parts that were rather boring to me. All in all, The Magicians of Caprona did not live up to the rest of the Chrestomanci series, and was a bit of a disappointment.

My Rating: 2.5/5