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Title: No magic in it for me
Review: I was looking forward to this, from reading the "back of the book" stuff, but it didn't take long to become disillusioned. The badguy is *so bad*, almost from page one. He basically does everything except kick puppies for fun. I couldn't take him seriously as a real person. His notion of his own influence is also overlarge; a couple of times later in the book he executes some cunning plan (which isn't very cunning) only to have it fail, and he has no backup.I was disappointed by the heart reading, because it didn't seem to be particularly insightful. I mean, the heart readers weren't telling the people anything they didn't already know. It didn't feel like magic, it felt like pop psychology. Also, the prince who wasn't "pure of heart" was described by the heart readers basically as unable to know love, but that really doesn't fit with the novel's end.To me, it just felt like there was some gratuitous violence and no real character development. I'd skip this one.
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