Jesus, the protagonist is irritating. If you can think of a new way to screw up or just be generally irritating in a way she didn't manage to blunder into during this book, you're an evil mastermind. For real.

There are a ridiculous amount of parallels with Labyrinth as well-- they don't end solely with the kidnapped brother.

Not the worst book I've read; I actually quite enjoyed parts of it and may continue with the series to see what happens. Maybe the author will take mercy on me and kill off Meghan.

good book. liked the characters n the storyline

It really felt like a slightly over-long intro to all the characters with a small bit of plot; almost none of which gets resolved as it leaves you hanging in wait for the next in the series. Still, the character of Meghan was alright by the end and while much of the Faerie-land stuff was old-hat; there was the twist regarding the Iron King which really was novel and would make me want to pick up the next book to see where it goes.

The first quarter was a little clunky and took a while to set the tone of the novel. However once the rhythm was established I really enjoyed the storyline and can’t wait to continue on with this series.

Great book! I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series!

By the end of this book, I was still trying to figure out why this is categorised as Young Adult. The narrative, story and twists are so simplistic that the only mature thing about it was the characters randomly trying to sound grown-up by swearing a couple times, such as "bitch" or "shit". Everything else is easily read by tweens and up. BUT I DIGRESS.

There are not many positive things I can offer the book... I liked how Meghan was supposedly a special existence, but her powers did not really show until much later and even then, it was mostly during fatal danger, which was a bit convenient but better than being the superheroine from the get-go. Puck as a character grew on me; his funny comments were annoying, but somehow I started to appreciate him more. Also, Ash seemed cute! Ah, and the story was a bit like going through nostalgic fairytales so that was nice.

That is it. That is all that I truly liked in the book. Everything else was pretty much a disaster. Where to begin?

Meghan? She is such a token main character that I wondered how many books I have read with dumb protagonists when I was younger and was fine with it. Well, I was not fine with it now. She literally never thought about important details. She finds out about this Faeryworld, her questions are only a few and she never asks about herself as to why she had such an important person guarding her. There is this conversation where Puck and someone else are talking about her in front of her about how special she is and she literally never bothers with it. And then she acts surprised that Oberon is her dad.

MAYBE if you had used that thing called your brain, Meghan, you would have found sooner.

And that is only the start of her stupidity. Of course, she is reasonably naive so I am not going to judge her on her every decision, but it is really painful to see her skip things, stand back, be useless but somehow she finds the power to do something, etc. YA, really?

The narrative? Although this did feel nostalgic, I am not a child anymore and this was supposed to be a more solid adventure, but there are convenient plot twists and plot armor everywhere around her. The one thing that really bothered me (which isn't really important, buuuut still) is how it is never mentioned how tired they are while travelling. Sure, if it is a plot detail, you will have details such as buying things for the trip, a fey being exhausted due to iron, but most of the time you start from place A to place B that may even be a day apart and you barely get any detail about the trip. Especially Meghan was NEVER tired, apart from extremely rare scenes when she had to run really fast. What's up with this?

And it is not only that. All characters get dim around Meghan, because somehow they listen to her even when they do not have to and are putting themselves into danger. So of course then, Meghan feels guilty. I guess it's supposed to show empathy and how important she is to them, but EHHHHH.

Ash? I really wanted to like him and I kinda do, but man, was he really forced to be the "forbidden" love interest. There is this supposedly touching scene when he talks about his past and how he lost his beloved, which made him vow vengeance even if it ended up with his death. Sweet, right? Well, he tries to console Meghan later saying "Were I aware then that I would meet you, perhaps my oath would not have been so hasty.", which automatically translates to me to "If I knew I'd meet another girl after losing my current girl, then I might have been fairly fine with it". That's the worst kind of line!

Character-wise, no one caught my eye. Grimalkin was the most interesting character, but the aloofness was also forced half the time, next. Puck was annoying and fun, so he gets a pass. Everyone else comes and goes and hardly anyone made any good impression and I already talked about Meghan...

The ending was... surprisingly easy. I expected this to hold for the rest of books, but I suppose the story changes a bit.

And that is it. A ranty review, because it deserves it. I will most likely read the rest, because I am curious and it is kinda fun poking fun at it!

I get the feeling that this series will get better in the next book. It started well and I had a great connection with Meagan, but it become too fairy-tail like and predictable. A common complain I hear is no description of how these alternate worlds comes to be, and for once there is not only an explanation but a quite plausible one but it left me disappointed as in a way making a magical world based on realistic reasoning just takes away the magic. Good news is the series isn't as long as I thought. It is actually a trilogy, with a fourth book from Ash's point of view and another Trilogy from her little brothers. Plus also numerous short stories which when combined leaves me feeling like the continuation of the world is for money making purposes, and now I've read the blurbs, I've effectively spoiled all the major plots twists so I may as well save myself the money.