Rating
3.5/5

I loved the idea for this book. I loved the idea of the characters and the storyline, but the book itself fell short. I felt like a lot of this book wasn’t fully fleshed out. I don’t feel like I knew the characters well, and I wish there was more time spent getting to know them. I also didn’t feel the chemistry between characters, the relationships felt rushed. I wish this book had spent more time slowing everything down. Spent more time describing the characters, learning about them, seeing them interact with each other. Even if that had meant putting the plot of this novel into two books, I feel like it could have helped. If this book had just gotten a couple more drafts to develop the characters and their relationships more than I feel like this could truly be a spectacular story.

That being said I did really enjoy the ideas behind this story and I’m interested to see the future books that this author writes.

I’d like to thank NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy of this book for me in exchange for an honest review.

Very sad I didn’t love this book as much as I thought I would. The world building and prose was beautiful! But the execution of things left much to be desired. The pacing was also a killer for me and had me struggling to get through this book. It at times felt very disjointed and would take me right out of the book.
I did absolutely love the relationship and representation in this book as well as the world Kacen created. When these things were shining through I was really enjoying it!

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion

Infinity Alchemist is an interesting queer YA fantasy book with trans characters and polyamory, and while it leans towards the younger side of YA it’s still an interesting, unique read worth checking out.
 
The world & magic:
One of my favorite parts of this story with the world – it’s magic system is complex and everyone has access to Source (their magic system) but only certain people are allowed to use it. (I would be in trouble in this world bc if I could wield magic I definitely wouldn’t follow the rules LOL). The magic system is so cool and complex – I only wish there was more explanation or even a guide to the Houses or tiers in the book – that would have made it easier to follow.
 
Sexuality and Relationships:
This world is also highly Queer-normative which I appreciated a lot. There’s plenty of elitism and classism but gender, sexuality, and relationships are widely accepted and normalized within this society.  There is a trans MMC,  a gender fluid MC who literally switched between their presenting gender and a pan MMC - all of this is no big deal and I loved it. it makes sense tho that this book would have a love triangle seeing as how the literally symbol of the book was a triangle LOLLL and to be clear, in a love triangle I am almost always a fan of the first relationship but in this case I’m team throuple LOL. 



The characters:
These characters were all late teens/early 20's  but they felt much younger because they all, Ash especially, whined at every turn about their lot in life and continued to make the absolute dumbest decisions possible. Ash, Ramsey and Callum were all really interesting and dynamic characters but when they got together they seemed incapable of remembering they had a job to do lol. I really loved that they were all queer in different ways tho and that we got POVs from Ash and Ramsey which gave a unique voice to each of them and their differing struggles within the story. 


The Pacing:
The pacing felt ……. strange. The story was slow going in the beginning which was fine seeing as how we are learning about the world, the magic and the characters…..then suddenly a lot would happen then it would slow down again. I was getting anxiety during slow times waiting for some major drop. I wish the faster pieces had gotten stretched over more pages to give more detail and tension.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Teen for providing me with a digital ARC of Infinity Alchemist in exchange for an honest review!
For whatever reason, when I requested this I was under the assumption it was an adult fantasy. But it is very much a YA. I have loved Callender’s contemporary work with Felix Ever After being one of my all time favorite books. But I really struggled to get into this one. The story felt like it started in the wrong place, and I wasn’t given enough cohesive detail with the worldbuilding to ever feel like I had a grasp on the world. This made it really hard to connect with the characters. I didn’t particularly care for Ash. He felt like a character we’ve seen before and unfortunately we spend the majority of our time with him. I found Ramsay to be more interesting and would have preferred to spend more time with her.
The writing style was very much telling which also made it hard to feel immersed in the book. All the cool details we did get were told and not experienced, which led to pages of info dumps and some times info that contradicted itself. There were a lot of interesting things about the world with the alchemy and the positive portrayal of queerness, but it just wasn’t presented in an interesting way.
I might go back to this one when I’m in a different mood, but as of now I have no desire to keep reading. DNF’d at 15%.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars--

I was excited to finally read some of Callender's YA after having read their adult fantasy duology. And despite the fact that Infinity Alchemist reads quite young (think edging into middle grade), I wasn't disappointed. Ash is a young, orphaned trans teen who yearns to study alchemy (i.e. magic), but was denied entrance to the elite college for alchemy, and therefore, his only legal path to receiving a license to practice alchemy. And incidentally, also his chance of meeting the wealthy alchemist father who took advantage of his deceased mother and abandoned them both. Instead, hoping to be close to the world of his dreams, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at the college, where he also practices alchemy in secret. When Ash is caught practicing alchemy by Ramsay Thorne, an outcast graduate assistant, he agrees to help him find a possibly mythical book that grants unthinkable power to the alchemist who reads it. Along the way, Ash falls for her (Thorne switches genders approx. once a day, keep up!). And also for her ex-boyfriend, Callum.

Yes, you heard that right. Infinity Alchemist is really truly a romantasy. A sweet, dramatic, teen, queer, polyamorous throuple romantasy. Which, I think, explains why it's hard to place this book on the age spectrum. It's probably hard to sell poly relationship representation to the YA and middle grade sets. But the writing and characters feel young. Not in a bad way. This is just certainly about a bunch of teens with chips on their shoulders, trying to prove something to themselves and the world, while also having BIG FEELINGS and BIG HORMONES. And grappling with moral complexities for the first time. And I enjoyed every minute of it. It's fast-paced, fun, and thought-provoking to young and old alike.

I loved the ~gender magic~ whereby anyone can use low-level alchemy to simply non-verbally broadcast their current gender to those they interact with. I loved the normalization of queer poly love. I loved the chosen family that three characters who shared traumatic childhoods got to create. I appreciated the tough questions about power, hierarchies, and whether the ends justify the means. I also appreciated--with a heavier heart--the treatment of hard subject matter, including grooming and abuse.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Tor Teen for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

*gifted ARC* I loved this!!!! These characters are so real and loveable. They’re layered and messy and interesting and I love them so much. The queer, trans, and poly rep in this made my heart feel warm and fuzzy. & I love seeing BIPOC main characters kick ass. The magic system was the teeniest bit vague for me, I don’t like not really knowing how things work. But I totally understand why it is this way, and I think as long as you’re okay with not knowing all of the specifics you won’t be bothered by it. I do think that at times it was really focused on the relationships and I wish there were more fast paced plot points, but I loved the relationships so much that I ate this book up anyway. The open communication these characters have with themselves and each other was so awesome to see. Yes, there were secrets and arguments, but they didn’t rely on miscommunication and I really loved that. I had so much fun with this & 1000% recommend it!

The book had a captivating world and mesmerizing magic. The author has crafted a dystopian society where power and control rule everything.

Now, let's address the elephant in the room - the slow start, this story gradually builds up its momentum, but it does take awhile so keep that in mind. The descriptions of both the characters and the world around them come to life. Sure, the plot may not be groundbreaking for those of us who mainly read fantasy, but this book compensates with its exceptional character development, diverse cast, and heartwarming relationships.

Definitely worth the read and I'm interested in what comes next.

**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.**

Kacen Callendar has their young adult fantasy debut with Infinity Alchemist. Readers follow Ash as he navigates a world where unlicensed alchemy, the only kind available to him, is illegal. As Ash stumbles into an opportunity to be formally taught alchemy, he also begins to see the webs of secrets and corruption on which his society is built. It doesn't take long for Ash to realize that these secrets could easily cost the lives of Ash, his friends, and whole cities worth of people.

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. I wanted to DNF around 35%, but powered through. Things did get better, but overall I found this reading experience to be a bit cluttered.

First, I recognize I am not the target age demographic for this book. But also, I'm not sure if that would make much difference given the issues I had. I found the pacing to be incredibly uneven. The start was slow and full of dense info-dumping, then falling into an action-filled zealous middle space, and a tidy little wrap up within the last 30ish pages. There was certainly room left for a sequel, but the combined effect of this pacing was unsatisfying. Ash was a frustrating, hot-headed character, but he is young and stupid, as so many are at his age. Ramsay was equally this sort of character, to me, which compounded the issue. Conceptually, the book should have been amazing, but the execution seemed to fall a bit short for me.

What I liked was the representation of queerness. Ash is transmasc and Ramsay is gender fluid, often shifting gender identity day by day. Both characters were handled with the appropriate respect both by the author and, for the most part, by other characters as well. I also liked the introduction of potential for a polyamorous triad with Callum and the way the three characters were open to each other.

I do hope this book finds its audience, but I think that readers who frequent the fantasy genre may share my frustrations. I look forward to exploring Callendar's backlist as I have heard wonderful things about their other works.

Thank you net gallery for the advanced copy of this book. I poured through this in three days. Good worldbuilding and characters. Interesting thruple. I would definitely recommend.

DNF @ 53%. I really thought I would love this one, but I just couldn't get into it. I was intrigued at first because of the interesting world-building, the magic system that reminded me a bit of the Force from Star Wars, and the really diverse queer rep. Unfortunately, the characters felt really flat to me, despite having interesting backstories and being thrown into compelling circumstances. The romance was a bit too insta, and I didn't think the characters had very good chemistry. I also just found the story really boring and reading it began to feel like a chore. Rather than end up in a slump, I decided to stop reading and move on to something else.

This is a new YA fantasy from Kacen Calendar that is set in a world where all people have magic but only a few select people have powerful magic. We follow Ash who gets a job as a groundskeeper assistant at a university and practices alchemy in secret but he gets himself mixed up in something dangerous when it stumbles upon something in a professors office. It’s dark, there’s forbidden magic, and there’s some dystopian elements mixed in as well but I found it hard to connect with the characters themselves.

There was a lot to love about The Infinity Alchemist. This story has some of the best representation of LGBTQIA+ characters of color in a fantasy novel that I have read, and I also just read Faebound, which has some solid representation. We have a trans MMC, a genderfluid MC, and what seems to be a pan MMC. From what I have been reading from other ARC readers, the genderfluidity of Ramsay is very well-portrayed with pronouns shifting oftentimes from chapter to chapter. The world appears to be queernormative, but there were not any background characters that I can remember also being queer. The romance side of this story sometimes feels more developed than the fantasy side of the story, even including a polyamorous relationship - not a love triangle.

Though the magic system feels more nebulous at times (ala Lord of the Rings with Gandalf doing whatever needs to be done), I still very much enjoyed this. Since this is a YA novel, I did not come in expecting adult-level explanations of the magic. What we get is enough to understand how rare or hard it is to be able to do certain actions - which leads to some incredulity over Ash’s abilities as he is not even trained as an alchemist, yet is extremely powerful “naturally.” This is my biggest hangup on the story, but I also see Ash as the “chosen one” trope in a way - with no prophecy. In this sense, it makes sense for Ash to have this power and be able to do what needs to be done.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this story and if you’re looking for a YA Fantasy story that has queer BIPOC representation, check out The Infinity Alchemist.

The only other book I've read by Kacen Callender is Felix Ever After, so of course this was very different! But, different in a good way! Callender was able to expertly build a magic world and weave an interesting story with in depth characters at the same time. And I of course enjoyed the LGBT+ rep. I would definitely recommend this book!

"'Yes,' Ash said. 'The wealthy and powerful are willing to step on the backs of others to get where they are.'"

Infinity Alchemist is a YA fantasy about a world where magic is controlled by the elite and one boy has the desire to change that.
While there were a few scenes that intrigued me, I think the biggest issue I had with this book was the pacing. Some parts seemed to drag on forever, whereas the final climax lasted about thirty seconds. Overall, it felt like the novel was more character-driven than plot-driven. Most of the scenes developed character rather than plot, which personally isn't my favorite thing.
Unfortunately, the characters also fell a bit flat for me. I'm going to be honest when I say I accidentally skimmed through some of the dialogue (because I wanted more plot scenes), and so even though the book felt character-driven, I didn't connect to any of the characters. The cast is very diverse and queer, which is a bonus, but I just couldn't relate much to them.
While Infinity Alchemist wasn't exactly my cup of tea, I can see it being very enjoyable for other people. If you're looking for a character-driven story with a queer cast and plenty of magic, this book is for you.
2.5/5

In the land of New Anglia, the divide between those with power and influence and those without is sharp and deep. And even though eighteen-year-old Ash has skills in alchemy, his background makes it impossible to legally practice and improve his abilities. So, instead of becoming a student at Lancaster College, Ash gets a job as a groundskeeper, scrounging what information he can as he cares for the sprawling grounds. But when the infamous Ramsay Thorne discovers the immensity of Ash’s alchemical prowess, the two form a tenuous agreement to secretly work together to find the fabled Book of Source. They are not the only people in search of the Book, however, and as the stakes are raised, they must learn how much they need to trust each other in order to survive.

This gripping young adult fantasy features a broad assortment of diverse characters. Told from multiple points of view, the narrative includes several characters of color, coupled with a variety of gender identities and romantic persuasions, as well. These inclusions enrich the storytelling, especially as they add greater complexity to the relationships and interactions taking place throughout the novel. As readers get to know the characters, empathy grows for them and their unique and complicated situations within the starkly divided world in which they reside.

As a fantasy story, this novel spends a good amount of time on the world-building component, immersing readers in an unfamiliar society that nonetheless shares multiple similarities with reality. A map and other pre-matter help provide reference points for readers, and the narrative itself draws readers in through well-crafted language and an excellent delivery overall. It is refreshing to observe characters who see the faults in their world amass the bravery required to disrupt those flaws, and readers will be cheering for each character’s success throughout the novel. The book is best suited to mature young adult and older readers due to the use of occasional strong language and intense subject matter. Filled with heart, conviction, and riveting storytelling, this young adult fantasy adventure is not to be missed.

This book was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024, and I was so excited when approved for an ARC, but this book just fell flat in so many areas.

I’ll start with the things I did like. I really liked the matter of fact way Ash was a transgender man. The binders he wore was very accepted and seemed normal. I also liked how Ramsay was gender fluid, again, in a matter of fact way. It was sometimes confusing which pronoun was being used per chapter for Ramsay in conjunction with talking about other people, but I don’t think this was a pronoun issue, it was more of a writing style issue.

For the issues, I had a really hard time getting into this book. The story felt like it was dragging while also being very fast paced, which was jarring to read. Think book is listed for YA audience, and the writing style does feel juvenile, but there was also explicit sex scenes that faded to black almost after they were done (??). I did love the overall queer rep and normalized sex talk for YA readers, but it did go a bit too far imo.

Ash seemed very immature for an 18 year old working in a college. I didn’t really understand how he was so powerful, and there were many times I was confused with the magic system. I think this could have been fixed with more back story on the magic and how it works in the real world, what people use it for, how it came about, what allows someone to have magic abilities vs not, etc.

When the romance with Ramsay started, I was genuinely shocked. I didn’t really see an emotional connection or any leading tension between the two. I DNF’d before I got to the poly parts so maybe it was built out more with that, but at about halfway through, I wished I was more intrigued.

Overall, I felt a huge disconnect with the characters, the overall world building was nonexistent, and the characters were not loveable to me. I may come back to this, because I really want to love it, but for now, I will need to put it down

Thank you NetGalley and Tor publishing group for the e-arc!
This book incorporates some of my absolute favorite things when reading fantasy: Diverse characters, unique magic systems, and fantastic character development. The mix of characters and their stories converge and develop throughout the book is spectacularly done. I always love books featuring alchemy as there's so much authors can do with this type of magic. I ended up thoroughly enjoying the way the author set up the world and how the magic interacts. The world features many dystopian elements with this society being focused on power and maintaining control.
This is definitely one of the books that starts off kind of slow but really builds as you continue to read. Both the characters and the world-building become so much more immersive and engaging as you understand more about the story.

Thank you to Tor Teen and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Oh my god I absolutely loved this book! I've been looking for more trans fantasy books and this definitely checks that box for me. I cried so much, the book was so incredible. I don't want to give too many spoilers but I think I screamed more than is acceptable for reading a book like this.

I had been looking forward to this book the moment I read that alchemy was criminalized for the MC and the cast was full of queer poc, but unfortunately this fell flat. The writing in this was juvenile at best, and did a whole lot more telling than showing at worst.

I enjoyed the writing of queer people, from their gender to sexuality. From Ash's certainty in his masculinity, to the handling of his dysphoria, to everyone respecting Ramsay's genderfluid pronouns. I was also interested in the magic system, but wish there was more time spent diving into it. At times it felt like we were kept on the edge of the full potential of this world's magic and history.

What I didn't like...well, for starters, there's a big problem with insta-love that happens between the characters in the polycule. Ash and Ramsay only know each other for two weeks, and then Ash and Callum only know each other for a different two weeks, before Ash is practically head over heels for both of them.

I don't think either Ash nor Ramsay clicked with me as characters - and I really wanted to like Ramsay - and it makes having to follow Ash's POV and watch him make one dumb and childish decision after another rather painful. Funny enough, Callum was more likable, which I assume was on purpose because he only gets the last 52% of the book to make a case for himself to be introduced as both a protagonist and a romantic interest (yes, he's brought up as someone from Ramsay's past a few times, but there's no indication leading up to it that he is about to join them for the plot train). I liked his genial, caring, and soft nature, and his struggle to choose between what's right and his family.

There's also a serious pacing issue, where the book breezes through fights and conflict, but then sits and chews on relationship drama and childhood trauma. The climax of this book felt like it was over in the blink of an eye, and with no real build up to it. The resolution was, to quote Ryan George from Pitch Meeting, "super easy, barely an inconvenience."

Marlowe was another sore spot for me. I expected her to have a much bigger place in the story, considering she was given a couple chapters to herself, but she was simply a character of convenience. She would be shelved until needed again.

Over all, while I really wanted to like this book, the interesting characters could not save the flimsy plot and bad pacing issues.

Thank you TorTeen for the e-ARC!

I loved the magic system created here, as well as the exploration of gender and relationships. This was such a creative fantasy world and I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure it took me on. Ash was not the most likable character, but I can see how growth will occur throughout the series as he discovers himself more. Overall I am so impressed by Callender’s first venture into fantasy writing!

Thank you to MacMillan and NetGalley for the ARC.