Review by Christopher G. Nuttall
An Academy for Liars
Alexis Henderson
Ever since Harry Potter reinvigorated the magic school genre, there have been a number of efforts to present a more adult take on the concept of an outsider going to a magic school and finding out that there was a place where they belonged all along. It is quite difficult to do such a plot without resorting to cliché, or falling into the trap of having your main character be secretly special all along, and when your characters actually in their late teens or outright adults there is also the temptation to turn it into a romance novel or explore horror aspects that would be very out of place in a children’s novel. An Academy For Liars is not, by any definition of the word, a children’s novel. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone not in their late teens.
The basic concept is fairly simple. Lennon, our main character, has a long history of making the wrong choices, culminating with becoming engaged to a man who sees her as little more than a pretty bauble to dangle on his arm, a fact that becomes quickly and brutally clear when Lennon catches him having an affair during the run-up to the wedding. In shock, Lennon is astonished to be contacted by Drayton College, a hidden school dedicated to the study of magic, and informed that she has passed the first set of entrance exams. Travelling to Drayton, she passes the second set of exams and discovers that there is a secret community of magicians existing under the United States, one that has now invited her to join them. These magicians are not conventional, not in the sense of Harry Potter: their powers are geared around persuasion, from simple hypnosis and mind control to extremely strong persuaders who can influence the world itself, effectively lying that two places are linked together (even if they are hundreds of miles apart) and creating a whole society that is both part of the United States and isolated from it. They are also engaged in a power struggle, and when Lennon discovers her true power – she is one of the rare magicians who can bend reality to her will, putting her on the same level as Drayton’s original founder – she finds herself caught up in a power struggle she doesn’t really understand, surrounded by people who have agendas of their own … and seek to exploit her for their own purposes.
Lennon is an interesting protagonist for a number of different reasons, starting with the fact she is very nervous and insecure in herself and has a tendency to let herself be overpowered, at least at first. She finds herself in a relationship with another student, which ends very badly when it turns out she is far stronger than he will ever be, and she is unsure if she should trust her sister (who is on the outside, but able to gather information to help her) or her advisor Dante, to whom she is unwillingly attracted. (The fact that this book includes a teacher-student relationship between adults and mentions another, in the past, between an adult and a teenager may be a dealbreaker for some readers.) She spends between being willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead in a very dog-eat-dog academic environment, and recoiling in horror at the demands of her new profession. Her insecurities grow tiresome after a while, and her shift to active player at the end of the book seems to come too late. But at least it does come.
She is also black, or at least mixed race, although this is easy to forget as it is rarely mentioned past the start of the novel and it comes a little jarring when the point is brought up again towards the end of the novel, when one character effectively notes Lennon is fit only to be a slave.
The other characters are very much a mixed bag. The author does a good job at keeping Dante’s true motives and feelings a mystery until the end of the novel, although there are times when his attitude towards Lennon grates. Some of her dormmates are good friends, others become rivals and even outright enemies as they realise Lennon will leave them behind. I do wish that had been played up a little more, as the sole major incident with her former boyfriend comes across as petty and pathetic instead of someone feeling legitimately cheated of being deprived of the reward for their hard work by random chance. The academics are hard and driven and to some extent they work to foster a certain sociopathy in their students, to harden their hearts against morale concerns so they can use their powers properly. They are also somewhat suspicious of Lennon, possibly for racial reasons, and when the first incident happens they come very close to expelling her.
There are certain contradictions. On one hand, some characters appear to be racial supremacists; on the other, they had at least one prior mixed race student who went off the rails spectacularly and they may have concerns about adding a second such students. They are very upper-class in many ways, but there is at least one homosexual relationship included and a lesbian relationship is mentioned (there are also hints that Lennon’s female roommate is attracted to her). That said, these are minor issues, just part of the surrounding world rather than the centre of the story.
The world around Lennon is a great deal more adult than Harry Potter (at least in the first few books). Drayton is deeply immersed in politics, using their powers to aid chosen politicians and cooperate officials in exchange for money and influence. There are very real risks in magic getting out of control – most of the mystery concerning Dante revolves around an incident in which he had to stop a rogue magician before it was too late – and much of the action towards the end of the book is driven by a very real fear that without someone like Lennon in place Drayton College will either be exposed to the mundane world or collapse completely. And yet, there is also something petty and academic about the stakes as the novel races towards its denouncement. It is an interesting juxtaposition that doesn’t entirely work. It also ends in a manner that leaves relatively little room for future books.
Overall, this book is a mixed bag. The magic system is confused and contradictory and many magicians are thoroughly unpleasant, or at the very least doing morally dubious things for no good reason. Lennon herself starts out poorly, and brings many of her problems on herself, but she does grow and develop as the story goes on and eventually becomes a player in her own right. This does come at a price, and her willingness to mind-rape her own sister suggests she is on the verge of falling into darkness. It does have its moments, but An Academy For Liars is probably not a book I will read again.
3/5.
