Aza Gen, curse cleaner and snooper at keyholes, never set out to break all the rules. She lives a sheltered life as a curse cleaner for Maripesa's ruling family. At thirteen, the day of her first period, she acquires an ability to split herself and see from two perspectives. She keeps it a secret, not knowing where this Talent fits in the magical structure of her society. Magic can so easily slide into chaos. That's why the belief in it was phased out over eons. But the island of Maripesa took a different approach. They used those eons to breed a system that uses magic to maintain order. Spell types are genetically bound to family clans. The upper clans curse. The mid clans repair or heal those curses. The lower clans have no magic. Anyone who breeds outside their clan is executed. It is a simple and perfect balance of power. Years later, Maripesa's rigid calm devolves under an upper clan spellwar and, not coincidentally, Aza loses everything. Sick, fearful and grieving, she's thrust alone into the unfamiliar city where she encounters hypocrisy and deception—so much worse than the twin evils of curses and maladies. But there are also good people with wells of kindness and wisdom; the experience of romance and sexual awakening; profound new kinships; and a burgeoning awareness of her own power. She finds women who have magic similar to hers. Women's magic—minimized, ridiculed, suppressed through generations—becomes her focus. Aza realizes that because it crosses and includes all clans, it can subvert the system. Her rage at mounting injustices will not stop until every outdated rule is undone. Book One of The Last Magic City unfolds through four characters from different clans. In addition to Aza Gen, there are Ferjival Puraples, son of the ruler, and an angst-ridden antagonist; Benelek Kruik, a fun-loving, charismatic woman whose generosity and ambition don't always coexist easily; and Vijo Besin, healer of maladies, scholar of all magic, romantic soul with perhaps too much patience for his own good. Aza, Ferjival, Benelek and Vijo show us the way through this charm-filled, twisty, heartfelt journey about the chaos that hypocrisy and hubris can bring and the healing that kindness will always manifest. 5/5 add this to your TBR. This story follows the lead character of Aza Gen, that last name indicating which magical clan she belongs to and thus, her loyalties and abilities. The Gen in this world act as a submissive partner to the Puraples, the leading magical clan. In contrast, their enemies, the Cruiks, have their own submissive clan, the Besin healers. The Puraples and the Cruiks spend their time tossing magical curses at each other, and their submissives scramble to clean them up. If this sounds like an endless cycle, it is, and revolution is brewing when a full-on magical curse plague breaks out. Added to these four clans is another set of people, folks whose parents broke the law by cross-breeding between magical clans and abilities. If they manage to escape execution, these Undones have no place in society. Aza leads the reader through this world as unrest grows and builds, becoming the sort of delicious revolution story where unexpected heroes emerge simply because of the situations they find themselves. It is a pleasure to read how Aza and her friends grow, change, and become different people across the events in the book. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it at that. If you enjoy a character-driven story filled with difficult decisions that change their worlds forever, this needs to go on your TBR! Jennifer Shelby - SFF writer, ARC reader This was a book full of chaos, with clans where each specialises in a form of magic and hierarchy between the reigning clan and the others is causing chaos. Full of found family, we follow a mere Gen girl called Aza amongst the chaos trying to change the status quo and make society more fair and equal. It's heartbreaking as we grieve friends and family lost to various causes but is an interesting set up to what will be a unique series with wild magic, political infighting, and more. --Jade Husdan-Hicks - Reviewer NetGalley The biggest strengths of the book are the characters and the coziness. There's a lot of wisdom in both the character choices and the writing, especially in the last half of the book. Structurally, the book is very solid, divided into the three areas of action, framed by two executions, and moving Aza from a place of ignorance to knowledge, powerlessness to power, friendlessness to community, orphan-yness to found family. Most of the ending is very good, and I thought the final sentence was perfect. (Which is a rare thing to find in even published books.) My reading copy of the MS is full of hand-written check-marks, underlines, hearts, and smiley faces. When you get to my Chapter notes below, almost all my notes on the last few chapter are just about things that I liked, that are done perfectly. So don't screw those up. -