YA Buddy Readers' Corner ♥ discussion

Crack open your spell book and enter the world of the illustrious Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary. There's been a murder on campus, and it's up to the students of Galileo to solve it. Follow 18 authors and 18 students as they puzzle out the clues and find the guilty party.

Professor of Magical History Septimius Dropwort has just been murdered, and now everyone at the Galileo Academy for the Extraordinary is a suspect.

A prestigious school for young magicians, the Galileo Academy has recently undergone a comprehensive overhaul, reinventing itself as a roaming academy in which students of all cultures and identities are celebrated. In this new Galileo, every pupil is welcome—but there are some who aren't so happy with the recent changes. That includes everyone's least favorite professor, Septimius Dropwort, a stodgy old man known for his harsh rules and harsher punishments. But when the professor's body is discovered on school grounds with a mysterious note clenched in his lifeless hand, the Academy's students must solve the murder themselves, because everyone's a suspect.

Told from more than a dozen alternating and diverse perspectives, The Grimoire of Grave Fates follows Galileo's best and brightest young magicians as they race to discover the truth behind Dropwort's mysterious death. Each one of them is confident that only they have the skills needed to unravel the web of secrets hidden within Galileo's halls. But they're about to discover that even for straight-A students, magic doesn't always play by the rules. . . .

Contributors include: Cam Montgomery, Darcie Little Badger, Hafsah Faizal, Jessica Lewis, Julian Winters, Karuna Riazi, Kat Cho, Kayla Whaley, Kwame Mbalia, L. L. McKinney, Marieke Nijkamp, Mason Deaver, Natasha Díaz, Preeti Chhibber, Randy Ribay, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Victoria Lee, and Yamile Saied Méndez

2AM WREN WILLEMSON, 16, SWORDS: I love an underdog character type. I was rooting for Wren the moment they had that disrespectful and infuriating encounter with Professor Dropwort. (view spoiler)[ I also like the different portrayals of necromancy and that the author isn't doing the stereotypical trope of evilness, but that it too can be a form of helpful, life-saving, and healing magic as well. (hide spoiler)]

5AM TAYA WINTER, 16, SWORDS & WANDS: I'm a little confused about this world. Those without magic (neutrals) are aware of the magical users and the school? Can't understand why the neutral police department is involved at all as this is a magical murder.

10-ISH AM. (OR EARLIER? MAYBE LATER) SYDNEY MEEKS, 16, IT'S COMPLICATED: (view spoiler)[ POCKET DIMINSIONS!? LORDT. We have now entered a magical multiverse. The Principal is looking very guilty with his mind control and trying to pin this on Sydney. I hope she can get out of it since she started to become aware that she was under his spell. (hide spoiler)]

How has Professor Dropwort been able to stay at this school with the massive amount of evidence of all of his hateful and harmful -isms? You telling me this magical school has tenure?!