This was much better than I expected!
Is it a typical clichéed as hell YA magic academy story with tacky romance? sure.
But you really can't be mad about that because it literally says so in the blurb.
But within the overserved genre with all its typical tropes is actually decent which makes it actually pretty rare.

I think the main point that differentiates this from most others in the genre is that it is willing to take the time to actually develop the story step by step to the point where it's supposed to go.
The author doesn't fall for the temptation to employ cheap and lazy shortcuts to just skip all the setup and handwave everything she doesn't want to waste time on while at the same time still presenting an interesting and immersive story.

The book couldn't be more unoriginal but the writing is just very well done and was able to capture me despite my strong negative bias against YA because it's notorious for lazy and inconsistent writing.

I am very surprised this wasn't a lot more successful. Maybe the pacing is too slow for the modern YA audience or the following volumes are much worse. I guess I will figure that out as I've already acquired the second one and will start to read it right now.

Edit:
The second book was a bit disappointing compared with the first one.
It has some major plot problems because it tries to employ a method of forcing the MCs hand that seems very appealing and easy but is actually very hard to pull off convincingly.

Namely, threatening friends and family so she does what the bad guy wants. The problem with this is that it's too powerful and there are no believable checks and balances on the kind of influence the bad guy can and can't take. It's all over the place and contradicts constantly.

The slower pacing which I praised in the first book became a liability because instead of picking up with the tension of the plot it got even slower which made large swaths of the story, which could've been very exciting and captivating, a chore.

The third thing that I didn't like on a more personal level is how casual the story is about general assholery and how quickly it is forgotten or ignored. Something similar happens with corporate corruption which the story plays down as something people laugh about in the end even after decades-long secret plots that led to hundreds of deaths at least are revealed.

All that is to say that the level of willing suspension of disbelief you need for the second book is significantly higher compared to the first one. It's generally much more in line with what you would expect from your average second-grade YA UF academy novel. ( )