This one dragged and I had a few other problems with it as well.
The MC constantly spins in circles around the same thoughts, conflicts and problems.
Every step of the plot is being recapped constantly. It feels like the memory game "Mother went shopping and she bought...".
The dialogue in some casual conversations is weirdly formal and sometimes people painfully spell out their inner thoughts and feelings in this incredibly stilted and overly self-aware way.
The author constantly tries to justify the thoughts and actions of characters in subordinate clauses even if there really is no reason for it.
Sometimes it can save face to explain a leap in logic or an obscure detail this way to not leave the reader behind because the necessary setup just didn't fit anywhere else but there is a limit before this becomes really irritating and this book goes far beyond it.

Basically, this book could've been a third the length and lose no information whatsoever.

The final plot twist of the mystery was well done and surprising but an attentive reader could've picked up on it earlier just as it should be. But everything beyond the mystery was so painfully obvious that I couldn't stop eye-rolling. An incredible level of stupidity is necessary to justify their inability to discover the mystery around the MC's magic. The reader just hadn't had the necessary information at first but the characters had it the whole time. It's baffling to me that the author was able to craft a decent main mystery plot narrative and at the same time fail so utterly at the same task in a different context.

Even tho I didn't really like this book I was somewhat intrigued by the very end of it but I won't be baited into buying another volume after such a sloppy second book. ( )