Bookbound Bunny

As of writing this review, I’ve read both published books and most of book three as it goes up on Royal Road.

Blurb

“Books contain countless wonders.”

Arakil, once a god of magic, found himself at odds with other deities. Imprisoned within his grimoire, he had to wait until the perfect person came along.

That person was a bunny girl named Lily. An orphan with a frail body that ruined her chances of being an adventurer. But, she had a talent for penmanship and a thirst for knowledge --- the perfect foundation for a mage apprentice.

Seeing the opportunity to train a new pupil eager to improve their life, and sensing a chance to work towards his own freedom, Arakil teams up with Lily to foster her magical abilities.

Thoughts

I picked this up after seen a good reddit review on the series, and damn am I glad I did. It was just what I needed in my new-baby-sleep-deprived state. Compared to the PF norm, the series is much slower, much more measured, and spends a lot of time exploring its cozy slice-of-life and magical-academy backbone. To be fair to readers, I’ll note that book one has the MC in her orphanage and its book two when the magic school arc begins.

Anyway, let’s break it down. Characterisation is really well done. Lily (the MC) is sweet, honest, hard working, and pouty. In terms of the downsides, she (and everyone in the story I swear) giggles a lot. Though her age is a bit ambiguous (unless I missed an explicit callout) she definitely sounds like an actual child character instead of a shrunken adult that we commonly get. Rose, her big sister (adoptive) is rash, passionate, and has a temper befitting her draconic heritage.

Oh, right. So humans are rare in this world---constant cross breeding means that beastkin like hybrids are the norm. Lily (MC) is a Lagia (rabbit heritage). Rose is a Dragia (dragon heritage). Lily’s best same-year friend in the magic school (Lotte) is a Serpia (serpent heritage, basilisk specifically for Lotte). This adds some character traits (dragons are headstrong) and more importantly ties into their bloodlines, which is how magic works in this day and age. Rose has a strong fire affinite from her bloodline. Avian heritage normally grants a strong wind affinity. You get it. Lily, having been granted a magic core from a ritual by seal-in-a-grimoire god-of-magic Arakil, fakes an Astral (star) affinity to not cause massive upheaval about what Arakil did.

Arakil is her mentor, of course, and the source of Lily’s magic, her progression, and her fastidiousness. He’s endlessly curious, an absolute perfectionist, and cares little for things outside of magic. Many of his teachings have been lost ages past, and Lily (as the first Lagia mage who is also very shy) is quite worried about all the attention these magics will bring to her. This leads them to do something I generally hate reading about, which is faking an impediment to not reveal Lily’s full scope of magical ability. Boo. Sometimes these can be done well (normally if there’s a really good reason) but honestly I don’t think this series is an example of that. Lily pretends that her “bloodline Astral magic” makes it harder for her to do other magic (like fire, water, etc), in the same way that Rose (dragon -> strong fire magic) can barely do ice magic. She’s worried that being able to do all the other magic well will draw too much attention… except for the fact that humans and other unaligned affinities can already do all forms of magic without issue. To top it off, to get around this self-imposed limitation, Lily relies on glpyhs (magic runes that you can pre-prepare), which is hilarious because her application of glpyhs and their construction is far more astounding to everyone than simply being able to do fire magic (etc) without issue like most of the people around her.

Anyway, I can forgive one gripe in anything I read. For a series I like so much, I’ll forgive far more.

In terms of pacing, yeah, it’s slow. In some of book three’s class-heavy arcs, maybe a bit too slow with too little actual progression on Lily’s side. I feel like with Lily constantly making literally world-changing revelations about magical theory, glyphs, etc, there’s potential for things to move faster, for some external force to up the stakes or the tension, but instead classwork sort of continues as normal. That said, I’m grateful there’s no random young master or bullying tropes in the setting, but maybe a hint more competition or tension would shift things up just the tiniest gear.

Despite these small ‘flaws’ (quoted because my opinions are my own) I really enjoyed this and will be eagerly reading new chapters on Royal Road. In fact, I’m about to go read Syl because its the same author and it might scratch the same itch for me. I’ll report back when I do with another review. In the meantime, highly recommend this bad boy.