I really liked this alternate reality. Ellie and her friends and family were really charming.

There are some major loopholes throughout the novel, but overall they don’t affect the story arc.

This is a YA novel, I’d say aimed at pre-teens, but I found it enjoyable, too. I don’t know if I’d seek out more adventures with these characters, but learning about the world they lived in and solving the mystery along with Ellie was a fun read.

DNF.

This isn't a bad book, I just cannot get into it. It's a very quirky slightly spooky book about a girl and her ghostly dog trying to unravel a mystery, but I've tried to pick it up and read it a few times and keep putting it down.

Perhaps it's just not the right time to enjoy this read.

I appreciated that they celebrated family traditions. However, like other reviews have said, that world building was challenging for me to get invested in, and the story felt young. I thought this was a story about middles schoolers, not teenagers.

This is a very hard book to review and describe. I loved so much of this book. I was confused by some parts (I had a bit of trouble getting into it at first). It is a mash up of lots of genres, it felt to me. I mean, vampires, ghosts, magic...It's worth a read for sure!

3.5 stars, the last third/half of the book was excellent enough to warrant rounding up!

This started off very disappointing in the fact that, despite the main characters being 17 and seniors in high school, they came across 100% like 12-14 year old's in a middle grade fiction mystery. Some scenes literally sounded like they came out of a Nancy Drew mystery--which I suppose is also an instance of YA-sounding-like-MG. Still, it was jarring, and I never really believed they were older than freshman in high school. Add into that the very 80s level fashion descriptions in the later half of the book, and my aesthetics were VERY CONFUSED. There were also a few instances of lack of consistency (Ellie not being allowed to driving without parents.... driving without parents for the whole book).

The tone also disappointed me because Ellie identifies as asexual, so romance made up zero percent of this book, but with the tone almost suggests that no romance plot means that the characters automatically are somehow more juvenile? I doubt this was at all intended and definitely don't mean to say that the representation is bad (it's well done!!!), but the correlation in my brain was there (this might be exacerbated since I am also reading [b:Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex|52128695|Ace What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex|Angela Chen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580804471l/52128695._SX50_SY75_.jpg|73599792] at the same time, so overanalyzing representation of aces is on the brain!)

ALL THAT ASIDE, on to the good stuff. Because while the first half was a bit boring, the second half really ramped up in terms of action and weirdness! It definitely felt like an episode of Grimm which is about the highest praise I can give to any form of magical realism media (I do hesitate to call this solely magical realism, since much of it is based around real Indigenous legends, but there is also still some legit magic going around too). The final showdown at the manor was, despite being jumpy, suspenseful and heartbreaking and CREEPY AF for a second there (there's some creepypasta level puppeteering with a corpse??!!). The story telling throughout, of family and tribal stories, was also lovely and it kept me reading through the parts I was "meh" about. Six-Great needs her own book series!! Although I would also love more stories about Grandmother and her mammoth. So really, all of Ellie's maternal lineage magic is awesome, and more books focusing on it would be awesome. Just hopefully more maturely written.

If you're more into YA and MG than I am, this will DEFINITELY be up your alley if you love diverse, intersectionalist representation that doesn't feel preachy--just matter-of-fact, confident, and never detracting from the storyline.

Also, ghost doggos!!

Very good, just didn’t feel like waiting in line to finish it.

3.5. The story is great but the writing is a bit uneven. Would definitely read more stories set in DLB's world.

This is a really good first novel. And a great "own voices" book for young people (but all calling something "own voices" tells you is the professed ethnic and cultural background of the author, it's not an endorsement of quality. People of Asian descent can write crappy books about Asian people in the same way Caucasian people can write crappy books about Caucasian people).

It's a nice bit of world building, but as other reviewers have said, there is a bit in there that didn't need to be there. Ellie often played younger than her years and her cavalier attitude to some weighty issues and events got a bit off-putting at times. Having someone in your novel tell a tale about someone who then tells a tale--that's just annoying and sends the reader right out of the dream you are trying to create with your words.

I was on Newbery the year this came out and was excited to get it, but after two attempts to get through it, I set it aside. {The supposed age of the main character nudges it into Prince territory anyhoo}. I tried twice more after Newbery year was up...and finally made it through by listening. So, yes, an enjoyable read. One of the 100 best fantasy novels? No, Time Magazine, it's not. but it is worth your time.