If you ask me, there’s a serious shortage of creative magic systems in young adult novels as of late. I do like a story with an interesting magic system, but most of the ones hailed as ‘creative’ are just copies of each other. It’s like ‘ooh, wow, they use stones to fight each other. And the stones have symbols on them. Wow!’ Or you’re reading a book and it’s all like ‘the main characters are angels, fighting tree people, and they use the power of singing to cast magic!’ And my response to that is… they’re still using magic. It’s just magic, except with voices instead of sticks. A half canopy! That’s what would make for a real magic system.[…]