National Book Award-winner Kacen Callender (King and the Dragonflies) enters the YA fantasy scene with Infinity Alchemist, an erudite novel set in an elaborately designed, hierarchical world run by the power hungry.
Eighteen-year-old, "brown"-skinned Ash wants to be an alchemist but learned when he was rejected from Lancaster College of Alchemic Science that natural talent isn't enough to break into the classist world of academia. Now Ash works in the school's gardens and practices alchemy illegally. Ramsay graduated Lancaster at 18, two years after their parents were hanged for treason. The "pale"-skinned 19-year-old is the youngest professor in the college's history and has the rare ability to switch genders, "a marker of exceptional power." After Ramsay catches Ash performing alchemy, they offer to teach the young man in exchange for help finding the Book of Source, a sacred text whose reader "would become an all-powerful alchemist." As they perform magic together that they could never accomplish solo, their mutual admiration turns into romance. But their search for the Book of Source is a towering problem for the magical aristocracy, who are willing to kill to retain power.
Callender includes the perspective of a third teen, Callum, in this novel of empowerment and self-acceptance to give readers a view from all levels of the magic society. The author creates teens who are rounded individuals, each maturing and developing alone, and eventually as part of a non-monogamous triangle relationship. This novel should thrill and enchant fans of Garth Nix's Angel Mage and Aidan Thomas's Cemetery Boys alike. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness