As with all her Holmberg's books, I read the book in one glorious day and was so sad when it ended. Although a spin off in the world of the Paper magician, the book stands alone. But you should read the trilogy too because it is beautiful. Back to this story, Alvie is an American student, recently graduated, who is assigned a famous polymaker (plastics magician) to apprentice with in England. What follows is Alvie's first year as an apprentice. She and Magician Praff work on developing some new spells and ideas to present at a magical world's fair of sorts. All sorts of drama ensues. There is a cute cameo by our main character from Paper Magician which was fun. And I won't spoil anything but one side character plays a central role with Alvie. I love this world, and the way I connect almost instantly to the characters. I will keep my fingers crossed for more books. On an aside, the about the author says that Disney bought the rights to the trilogy. That could be exciting!

This is truly one of my favorite series, and I am so happy I was able to read another story.

The Plastic Magician is a spin off, which takes place after the events of The Plastic Magician trilogy. I believe that you could read this as a stand alone, but wholeheartedly recommended doing the trilogy first.

We meet a brand new character ( Alvie ) who is leaving her home in Ohio to travel across seas to apprentice under the prestigious Magician Praff.

Magician Praff is a prior attendee of the Discovery Convention, where he gained lots of attention with his last creation. He’s been stumped for something to showcase this year, but as luck would have it, it seems like Alvie was just the person he needed to make things happen. Together they work on an invention that will shake the magical and medical world. However, there are issues that arise that no one anticipated, and Alvie’s got to find a way out of a very tough situation.

Alvie is an absolutely wonderful character. She’s smart, ambitious, confident (except when it comes to cute boys) and is a giant clutz. She’s adorable and everything you’d expect from a main character in this series. Magician Praff also amazed me. He is so supportive and attentive to Alvie, and I loved their dynamic together. The supporting characters that Alvie builds relationships with are adorable, I love her interactions with them.

For fans of the trilogy, this has everything you love about the series. There is magic, there is love, and there is mischief.

There’s also the painful feeling at the end that this simply wasn’t enough, and you need more!!

I completely loved this book! Alvie is adorably awkward, and Bennett is just adorable. I cannot wait for more books by Charlie! I really loved the first three books in this series, but this story was something special. I hope the author does more in this world!

I have to admit, I enjoyed this instalment the most out of all the books in the series thus far.

Alvie was such a great character and I found her so much easier to connect and relate to than the character of Ceony in the other books.
Ceony seemed to mostly annoy and frustrate me, whereas Alvie was delightful!
She’s smart (like, really really smart), clumsy, bold, adventurous, hardworking, plucky, brave, curious, and most of all - she really REALLY likes to wear trousers *gasp*!
I loved that she was a little bit different and didn’t really care what people thought about her.
She was wonderful.

I also enjoyed being able to take a break from paper magic and folding for a while (though there is a sweet little cameo appearance hidden in here which was lovely).
I found Polymaking and plastic magic to be fascinating and it was refreshing to learn about something so completely different from the paper magic we’ve had in the other books.
The Polymaking gave this book more of a sciencey edge and almost gave it a kind of steampunk vibe somehow.

The story was also lovely, if a little obvious and predictable.
It’s a lovely little adventure to carry you away for a few hours, just don’t expect any Earth-shattering plot twists along the way.

All in all this was a very enjoyable book and I’m looking forward to seeing what Alvie gets up to next!