Summary:
First-generation graduate student Dorothe Bartleby has one last chance to pass the Magic program’s qualifying exam after freezing with anxiety during her first attempt. If she fails to demonstrate that magic in classic literature changed the world, she’ll be kicked out of the university. And now her advisor insists she reframe her entire dissertation using Digimancy. While mages have found a way to combine computers and magic, Bartleby’s fated to never make it work.
This time is no exception. Her revised working goes horribly wrong, creating a talking skull named Anne that narrates Bartleby’s inner thoughts—even the most embarrassing ones—like she’s a heroine in a Jane Austen novel. Out of her depth, she recruits James, an unfairly attractive mage candidate, to help her stop Anne’s glitches in time for her exam.
Instead, Anne leads them to a shocking and dangerous discovery: magic students who seek disability accommodations are disappearing—quite literally. When the administration fails to act, Bartleby must learn to trust her own knowledge and skills. Otherwise, she risks losing both the missing students and her future as a mage, permanently.
Review:
Wow, the metaphors in this book are extremely on point for current events, and I mean that in the best way possible. This novel presents those who seek academic accommodations in a positive light, which is a message that I think students sorely need. I work on a college campus, so this is something that doesn’t seem beyond the pale to me, but those not part of academia may not be aware of the many ways in which classroom instruction can become difficult for students for a variety of reasons. If our mission is to help students to succeed, we should be willing to help them in any way that we can; and yet, for various reasons, that’s often not the case.
This book paints a portrait of an administration that will do anything to be sure that it looks good, looks successful, even at the expense of those whom it is supposed to work for. While this book, through the use of magic, makes the stakes a bit higher than they are in real life, the effects can feel quite similar. In the story, those who ask for accommodations actually vanish; in real life, those who need such aids are often made to feel invisible or unworthy of attention. This book just takes it to a more literal level.
It also does a good job at showing the effects on students of not having accommodations to help them through their time in college. The stress, the anxiety, the sense of helplessness and of being unworthy, are palpable and heart-wrenching. This novel pushes back at the idea that there is some kind of “normal” that every student must conform to, and I applaud the author for it.
The message of this book can be summed up in this quote from the main character: “Given how many adaptations of Pride and Prejudice I’d consumed in my lifetime, I knew it was possible to tell new stories with the same old characters.” I love that line, as it reminds me that we’re not locked into any line of thinking, or into any of the stories that people try to tell us about ourselves–or indeed, those we tell ourselves about ourselves. We can always change the narrative.
The one thing I didn’t like about this book was that it seemed to get bogged down at times. I think the story would have worked just as well, and maybe even a bit better, if it had been tightened up just a bit. It’s not a huge complaint, but I was aware of my attention drifting at times in the book’s middle section. It’s worth continuing on through those slower parts, though. Just be aware that the pace falters occasionally.
Overall, I think that this book told a good story and managed to make a statement about a crucial subject without being too heavy-handed about it. I think this would be a good book to recommend to those just starting their dive into dark academia, because it has enough grounding in the real world to ease new readers into the genre.
