Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce for TeensReadToo.com

At the start of this wonderful conclusion to a great fantasy trilogy, Reason Cansino is a lot of things most fifteen year olds aren't. She's magic. She's pregnant. And she may or may not be entirely human.

In this continuation of Reason's story, she is falling more and more deeply into the strange, ancient, and inhuman power given to her by Raul Cansino. She is becoming more and more scarily powerful--but she's giving up her humanity (and maybe that of her unborn child) for that power. She won't die young like so many magic-wielders who use their powers unwisely, and neither will she go crazy and end up in the loony-bin with her mother.

But is giving up her humanity worth it?

MAGIC'S CHILD is strictly a continuation of an already begun story. It is not a story within itself, really, and, as such, should only be picked up by those who have read the first two parts of the trilogy (MAGIC OR MADNESS and MAGIC LESSONS). If you haven't read those, well, they're highly recommended, as well!

Justine Larbalestier's third installment in the MAGIC OR MADNESS trilogy is a good conclusion to the story, one that will have readers racing through it as fast as possible. It was a little bit open-ended for my taste, but not in a terrible cliffhanger way. It was either a less than fabulous last chapter or a fabulous way to leave the door open for another book set in this universe; who knows? Either way, the characters, dialogue, and style of MAGIC'S CHILD are all great, it's well worth reading, and I'm looking forward to reading more from Justine Larbalestier. ( )

I was really pleased by how much I enjoyed Magic's Child. This is a really good book, so good that it actually made me like the first two books in the series more, as I look back on them.

I think some of my pleasure in Magic's Child comes from how complicated the story becomes and how unexpected the ending was for me. Without giving too much away, I really appreciated Larbalestier's willingness to turn her characters' lives so upside down.

http://archthinking.blogspot.com/2009... ( )

http://lampbane.livejournal.com/542806.html

"The title makes me think of Misery, the Stephen King novel. I can't really explain that without getting too spoilery. But at least now, we get some answers so the book is more satisfying than its predecessors. Tom and J.T. are particularly cute in this volume, and I appreciated the multi-layered nature of the other characters—Reason's mother, the grandmother, and the main villain (for what little he actually does). Reason herself got on my nerves a bit. The book had an okay ending, but there was a bit too much exposition in the epilogue, which always strikes me as weak storytelling. Overall, it's a decent trilogy, though nothing world-shattering."

This is a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy - Reason, now gifted with the powers of her immortal ancestor, becomes less and less human as she becomes intoxicated by magic. All of the magic uses are faced with stunning new options - to become and inhuman part of the magic, or to give up magic forever and become normal people again.
I thought the characters were weaker in this last book, I didn't buy into the romance, or the motivations of Sarafina or her father. And the ending seemed like a Hollywood bid for further books.
I'd give this to fans of the first two. ( )

A very satisfying ending to a difficult story. When Magic or Madness are the only choices, finding another way takes some creativity. ( )