This was an interesting read - I went in not knowing what to expect, and while the experience was a little uneven, overall I came out quite enjoying it. This is a book with heavy RPG influences - magic runs on mana, which is intricately counted out and manipulated according to specific rules that are expounded in great detail. The setup is fairly classic - the determined protagonist is underpowered yet quite intelligent, and is determined to grasp at a seemingly impossible goal amidst a lot of wider scheming he doesn't fully understand. He also collects a few allies, including his half-sister, a country girl with a mean punch, a mysterious foreign transfer student, and a childhood friend he keeps forgetting about. It's a classic tale in a pretty fun story, all in all, though I did have a few issues.

While I think the intricate, detailed magical system was well fleshed-out, I have to admit that the level of detail was too much for me, and for several sections of the story the focus on the details of the magic made my interest waver. The protagonist also spends a lot of time thinking about magical arithmetic and finances - he's very pragmatic, which is admirable, but I also found it a bit more difficult to relate to him for that reason, and it makes it harder for the reader to learn about the other characters, including a few characters and relationships and questions that seem to fall off the radar. I feel like I want to re-read the story from his half-sister Sera's perspective - she seems like a potentially fascinating character who's quite underserved by the narrative structure and the protagonist's fairly inward-looking perspective. I also felt a lot of the humour fell flat for me, though it's difficult to say whether this is because of the writing or a consequence of the character's generally socially awkward protagonist.

That said, I did find the world fairly interesting, and I was curious enough about the characters' fates that I kept reading. By the final third the book really picked up the pace and started getting harder to put down. I'm still not sure I'm particularly invested in the protagonist's personal quest and its complications, but I'm definitely left wanting to know more about the surrounding cast and the plots taking place in the world overall. I also greatly appreciate the book's dedication to laying out and exploring unconventional solutions to problems, as well as not making every rumour and hunch pay off directly, which allows for some good suspense and unpredictability.

I was wavering between assigning 3 or 4 stars, but I'm going with 4 because I think the book is setting up a lot of interesting questions that could yield great payoffs down the line.