Review: "The Gospel of Loki" by Joanne M. Harris

Before I can adequately explain why and how this book is awesome, we need to take a step back and look at the subject matter. As in, Loki, the Norse god of trickery and treachery.

Loki is currently going through a moment of huge popularity, due to the "Thor" movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And with good reason. Tom Hiddleston does a wonderful job with the role. However, there is one problem with his character, on a writing level: he is very clearly not to be trusted, and when the other characters keep trusting him and falling for his schemes, they look like total idiots. 

And, if you think about, that's the hardest part of writing Loki right: he's supposed to be a skilled manipulator, to win all his battles by treachery, but he has a reputation as someone untrustworthy, so his opponents ought to be expecting a trick, unless they're a bunch of incompetent goons. 

How do you reconcile Loki manipulating everyone around him with his adversaries being intelligent? Is it even possible?

Harris does it and does it very well. The other characters don't trust Loki at all. In fact, they're more than ready to accuse him of any trouble ( and more often than not they're right). He still manages to trick them, not because he simply tells a lie and they believe him, but because he thinks outside the box, so that while they are expecting him to try something, they never are looking out for the right thing. 

Loki, the Light-Bringer, the misunderstood, the elusive, the handsome and modest hero of this particular tissue of lies. Take it with a pinch of salt, but it's at least as true as the official version, and, dare I say it, more entertaining. 

Loki does also manage to be a skilled liar. He accomplishes this by being mostly truthful, by twisting the facts so that the he is painted in the most flattering light possible. He admits his faults, but his quick to shift most of the blame onto someone else.
He is a good manipulator, and this is evidenced not only by his ability to manipulate the other characters, but by his ability to manipulate the reader.  

Despite the fact that most of his actions are questionable as best and awful as worst. All those of you who know Norse mythology know what he's responsible for (I won't spoil it for those of you who don't, but suffice to say this: it's really, really bad).
All the same, he succeeds in making himself sympathetic. I truly pitied him for the things he was put through. He is depicted as someone who used to have a kind of innocence to him, for all his chaotic nature, until the people who were supposed to be his friends stripped it from him. 

Till then, I bided my time, and smiled as sweetly as my scarred lips would allow, until the day I would take my revenge and bring the gods down, one by one.

At the same time, it's Loki who's telling the story, he's casting himself in the role of the victim, and the reader never finds out how much of it is true. 

The other characters are not as well fleshed-out as Loki is, but they still manage to be complex and layered, especially Odin. I also liked this novel's interpretation of Sigyn, Loki's faithful wife, which was quite unlike anything I've ever seen before.
One thing I didn't like in how one of the myths in particular was handled. I won't spoil it, but Odin does something really awful to Loki. I was really looking forward to that story, because I expected it to have huge consequences on Loki's character development. And the build-up to it was actually handled really well. And then it happened and then it was never mentioned again.    

The dialogues sometimes contain instances of modern speech, which I don't like, since it's set in a medieval-like world. However, the prose is gorgeous most of the time, especially in the first few chapters, which contain some great paragraphs.  

"Sticks and the stones may break my bones", as they say in the Middle Worlds, but with the right words you can build a world and make yourself king of it. King, or even god - which brings us back to the Old Man; that master storyteller; keeper of runes; lord of poetry; scribe of First and Last Times. Creationists would have us believe that every word of his story is true. But "poetic licence" was always the Old Man's middle name. Of course, he has a lot of names. So do I. And because this isn't history. but mystery - my story - let's start with me for a change. 

The novel retells Norse mythology, which I am quite familiar with, so there aren't any unexpected twists, at least not for me. The way they are retold, however, is really entertaining, so it's definitely recommended even if you're a Norse mythology expert.
If you're not familiar with the original myths, then it's recommended for you too, this can definitely be a way to get into them.

In short, I think you, all of you, should read it.

Let
       there
                 be
                       light. 

 Rating: 

★★★★★

Review: "Vessel" by Sarah Beth Durst

The main character of "Vessel" is Liyana, a young woman from the Goat Clan. She and her people live in a desert, and during the last few years, they have been plagued by a drought. Things should get better soon, though, because Liyana is a vessel. Vessels are people who are picked to give up their bodies to their clan's god or goddess, so that the deity might walk upon the earth and help the clan to survive. When this happens, the vessel's soul is dislodged from their body and they die. The body lives on, but with the deity's soul inside it. After a year, the god or goddess leaves the body, and the body dies as well. 

Not only are vessels condemned to die young, they aren't awarded the same freedom that is given to their peers even when they are still alive: they can't take part in risky activities, they can't scar, they can't have sex, they can't attempt to practice magic…

So, basically, being a vessel sucks, but it's considered an honor, so out of all the characters we meet in this book, only one vessel resent her fate. 

And that's the book's first fault: the vessels are a really interesting idea, but they are not exploited to the fullest. The moral ramifications of the idea that it's okay for one person to die if it saves a whole bunch of other people are never explored. This is especially true because of a revelation that comes late into the book, and which should change things a lot in the characters' view of the world, very quickly (key word being "should").

Another fault the book has are the gods. They are dicks. There's not another way of putting this. With the exception of one god (the first we meet), they all spend their time bitching and moaning and being disrespectful to the members of the clans. They also have done some really questionable (if not outright evil) things that are never explained. The least spoilery thing of which is that they created sand-wolves, monsters made of sand that run inside sand-storms and attack people who are on their own. Why did the gods create these monsters? Who knows! Maybe they were bored and decided: "hey, let's make the desert people's lives more difficult than they already are!".

The first part of the novel is pretty good, if a bit monotonous. The characters travel from one clan to the next, finding more and more vessels to add to their ranks in a rescue mission to help some entrapped deities. They travel to the desert. There's a lot of sun, a lot of sweat and a lot of sand. Magic might be involved somehow. Yawn. 

However, the author does a good job at using the pages for character development and to set up the relationships between the characters.

If only any of this payed off. 

The second half of the book focuses on entirely different relationship, and a good chunk of the characters changes. Time is no longer devoted to character development, though, since the plot is now moving forward at breakneck speed. Oh, if only I cared about the people doing these things.
I wish the book had been longer by a hundred pages or so. That way, the build-up to the final battle would have been bigger, the final battle itself would have been longer and more epic and the ending better explained. I still can't figure out why some things happened the way they did.
Also, a new love interest was introduced in the second half of the book, and we got a love triangle that had no reason to exist whatsoever, since the new guys has so few scenes with the main character that I could count them on the fingers of one hand.
On the other hand, the relationship between Liyana and the trickster god Korbyn isn't much better. While there's a lot more build-up to the two of them falling in love (it's not a spoiler, you can tell from the first time she describes him that he's going to be a love interest), there are a several factors that make it kind of creepy. For example, he's the lover of Bayla, the goddess to whom Liyana was supposed to give up her body and he's thousands of years old.
I was slightly disappointed in the character of Korbyn in general. Trickster gods are usually the most interesting of the bunch, so I was excited when the blurb promised me a trickster main character. I was expecting someone smart and mischievous, always three steps ahead. Korbyn's not like that. He even sucks at being a trickster. Everyone sees through his schemes. We only know of one instance when he managed to trick someone and get away with it. One. Oh, and he showed up at an important meeting with a donkey's head in order to make fun of the other gods. Most of the time, he doesn't have a clue as to what is happening. You know his people are tricksters because they lay out traps for their enemies. Wow. They aren't even ingenious traps. It's not trickery, it's common sense!
On a more positive note, the mythology is interesting and, for the most part, very well-done. I liked the way the myths and stories where interwoven with the main narrative, and the magic system is also quite intriguing.
The first part of the book is worthy of four stars, but the second half only deserves two (and barely at that). So I'll give "Vessel" three stars and call it a day. I still recommend it, if you don't know what to read and like mythology, but there are a lot of better books out there.

 Rating: 

★★★

Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

The main character of “Throne of Glass”, Celaena has become the world’s greatest assassin at the ripe old age of seventeen.

Wait, what?

That’s ridiculous. Seventeen is way too young to be the world’s best anything unless it’s something that specifically requires to be very young to be skilled. And since Celaena thinks this of one of her competitors, we can rest assured that that is not the case with assassins.

Assassin indeed. His voice hasn’t even deepened yet. How did he wind up here?

But way more importantly than that, how can anyone be the world’s greatest assassin? And that’s not a personal opinion of a couple of people, that’s common knowledge. First off, who measures these things? You would be hard-pressed today to have people give the same answer to the question “who is the world’s best fashion model?”, and the performances of fashion models is something anyone can access. A good assassin shouldn’t be someone everybody has information on. But in this world, apparently, being a good criminal means being really famous and having people know your name. I don’t think there are words to describe how idiotic this concept is.

Then, there’s the little matter of this fact: we wouldn’t be able to decide today who the best in the world at something is (world’s best lawyer? Does anybody know who that is?). Today, when we have the Internet, and you can circle around the world in a matter of days. Try establishing that in the world the story is set in, where they have medieval technology and magic has been outlawed (so they can’t use magic to communicate or travel any faster), where crossing a country takes weeks. There’s not enough communication possible to decide with any sort of accuracy who the best assassin in the world is.

For these reasons, Celaena’s character could only be more over-blown if her name actually were Badass McAwesome. She’s a Mary Sue at her finest: she’s beautiful, she’s physically strong, she’s intelligent, she’s musically gifted. Her abilities never, ever fail her.

Her arrogance might actually have been an interesting character trait, if it had been exploited more. If she’d made a huge mistake because she didn’t think anybody capable of beating her. But, nope. Infallible Celaena.

Also, she’s judgmental as hell. She thinks of the king of Adarlan as a murderer and a monster. Which I am sure he is, but so is Celaena. She kills people for money. She thinks of all the pretty dresses she could buy with her salary as the king’s personal assassin. And this is never portrayed as problematic. When I read a book about assassins, I expect them to be anti-heroes. Or, if they aren’t, if they do this to keep themselves or somebody they care about alive, to hate having been coerced into this line of work, to feel remorse for their killing. Celaena never feels remorse for what she’s done. No, she’s a good assassin. How do we know this? Well, she doesn’t kill children. That doesn’t make her good. It just makes her a little less of a monster. But she’s still a monster.

The romance was actually quite light, for the most part, and the love triangle didn’t bother me at first, until the she started flipping back and forth with her feelings for the two guys. Then it definitely started getting on my nerves.

 Also, while Celaena does not fall into insta-love, one of her two suitors does.

Still, the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lovely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back.

He thinks this two weeks after their meeting. He knows she’s dangerous. He knows she resents him and his family for what happened to her and to her kingdom. He knows that her attempted suicide involved killing several people with a pickax. He doesn’t know her. He’s enamored of her anyways. What an idiot. 

He loved her, and no empire, no king, no earthly fear would keep him from her. No, if they tried to take her from him, he’d rip the world apart with his bare hands. And for some reason, that didn’t terrify him.

This is after knowing her for three months, and they really only start spending time with each other after two months have already passed.

The bad guys are utterly ridiculous. They practically prance about wearing sparkly signs with the words “I’m EVIL” around their necks. And Celaena, who is supposed to be smart, somehow manages to be surprised when the villain’s identity is relieved.

Also, there’s a castle made of glass. Of actual glass. What the hell? I suppose that it’s really thick glass, but it’s still not going to be as efficient as stone when it comes to defending it.  A couple of hits from a catapult and it’ll be smashed into little sparkly bits. And it’s the capital of a kingdom focused on warfare, too. Why would you build this really inefficient, expensive castle that’ll guarantee boiling summers and freezing winters? How do you manage a fireplace in a castle made of glass, a material that melts really easily when put in contact to flames?

The writing’s fine most of the time, but sometimes there are some rather weird phrases, like:

Her blood grew warm and glittering.

But maybe Kaltain is a Twilight vampire, that’s why her blood is glittering.

There are some sudden POV shifts, which is an amateur mistake (I tried to edit the spoilers out as much as I could, but if you want to avoid all spoilers, then skip this bit):

Carefully putting his arms around Celaena, Dorian glanced toward [Characters A and B] In doing so, he missed the look exchanged between [character C] and [character D]. [Character D] pulled out his dagger.
But Chaol saw.

However, despite all its flaws, this book managed to keep me entertained and intrigued. It’s not a good book, by any means, but it’s a fun book, and not of the so-bad-it’s-good variety. So it's still getting two stars. 

 Rating: 

★★

Review: The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

The main character in "The Iron Trial" is Callum "Call" Hunt. He has the potential to become a mage, but his father has always warned him that magic is dangerous. Despite Call's best efforts, though, he is forced to go to the Magisterium, to be taught how to use is magic. 

This book is very reminiscent of "Harry Potter" in some ways. We have a magic school in a secret location. We have a young boy, who has magical powers. His encounter with the greatest evil of his age when he was a newborn left a permanent physical mark on him. He doesn’t have any friends in his town, but when he goes to the magic school, he befriends several people, in particular a boy and a girl. The dark wizard they’re all afraid of has an ominous nickname: he’s called the Enemy of Death. He wants to become immortal.  

The similarities between "The Iron Trial" and "Harry Potter" are particularly obvious in the first few chapters, so in the beginning I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes and going “oh, I haven’t heard that one before”.

 Thankfully, as time went on, it became less and less similar to the "Harry Potter" series, and I started enjoying it more and more.

“The Iron Trial” is rather short, and not much happens in terms of plot, as most of the book focuses on the world- and character-building. However, the book did make me want to keep reading. 

The main character, Call, is a pretty standard middle grade fantasy lead for most of the book: he’s a troublemaker, he’s caustic, he has the bad habit of acting first and thinking second, he’s loyal to his friends, he’s stubborn and proud. The only really good bit of character development he gets is right at the end. It made me appreciate his character a great deal more.

I really liked Tamara. She’s ready to do pretty much anything in order to reach her goals, and has been pressured from her family to be an overachiever. She has a temper. She wants do to the right thing. 

Of the three main characters, Aaron is the least compelling one. He doesn’t have any characters fault, and he never rises above his own stereotype. He’s a golden boy the first time we see him and he remains that way for the whole book.

The bully character, Jasper, had the possibility of being very interesting, despite the fact that he came off as really clichéd in the beginning. He was brave and his reasons were sympathetic, and I do hope to see more of him in the next books. 

The rest of the characters aren’t very complex or memorable, but none of them are outright unlikable, either.

There wasn’t anything really new and original about the world-building. There’s no sense of wonder,  nothing that surprised me, which is what I look for when I read fantasy. However, it all held together quite nicely and the reader was eased into the world of Magisterium with a lot of skill, so that there were no boring info-dumps. 

I loved the twist at the end of the novel. It was foreshadowed a great deal, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise, but the implications are very interesting. It’s enough to make me want to give the next book in this series a chance.

All in all, this book kept me entertained. I recommend it if you’re in the mood for some light reading and you don’t have a lot of time to read. “The Iron Trial” is an okay book, but nothing more than that. I would have given it two and a half stars, but the twist at the end was a saving grace, and it earned the book an extra half star.  

 Rating: 

★★★

I received this book as an eARC from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Review: "the Outsorcer's Apprentice" by Tom Holt

Do you like fantasy? Do you like books that are a bit (ok, a lot) silly?

If you answered yes to both those questions, then go read this book. Go read it right now.

Still here? Need more convincing that you should read this? 

Very well, then. It goes like this: there's a land, in another dimension. A land where all the characters of the fairytales you used to read as a child are real.

It's not nearly as sweet and whimsical as you may think. It's a lot sillier. 

There are wolves in the woods. They dress up as old ladies and try to lure unsuspecting girls into their houses to eat them. Not that they ever succeed, mind. There's always a convenient woodcutter coming to the rescue. Also, a girl named Buttercup has figured out a rather clever way to deal with the wolves: she slaughters them with her hatchet and steals their valuables. 

There are elves in the woods, as well, and they don't like humans much. But don't worry, they're too busy writing snarky reviews of each other's books and playing Vivaldi's four seasons 24/7 for the benefits of call centers all over the globe to be much of a threat.

Goblins and Dwarves have been fighting a war for generations. Battles are decided by games of "I spy" and treaties happen over "Monopoly". 

Oh, and there's a wizard. Have I mentioned that there's a wizard? He dabbles in the economy of all these little states, plagued by ogres and witches and dragons and talking wolves. No one quite knows what his deal is, only that he's been around for as long as anyone can remember.

But of course, a place such as this can't really work, it doesn't make sense. Anyone would see this, if they think sensibly about it long enough. 

It's a good thing no one thinks too hard about it. Until now. Now, it's becoming clearer and clearer to Buttercup that an economy based on just woodcutters doesn't work. And she can't help but wonder why the hell the wolves keep coming back to the woods, if they never survive. And how the hell are there still wolves? They should have died out generations ago. What do they eat, if the villagers are always saved by the woodcutters? 

The book is full of ingenious ideas such as these, showing both the holes in the logic of the typical fairy tale world and how someone might exploit this kind of place to their own ends. 

"The Outsorcer's Apprentice" features several hilarious characters, such as a lawyer whose goal in life is to lead the biggest court-case ever, and now he's "off to sue the wizard", as he puts it, a intrepid goblin king who wants to lead his subjects into a new era (and if their new occupation won't be nearly as worthy of respect as the last one, well, who are we to judge?), a knight who really doesn't want the hand of the princess and half your kingdom as a reward, thank you very much. 

There's Buttercup, who may be one of my favorite characters ever. She's always either manipulating money out of people or coming up with some crazy and morally questionable scheme to make profit. Not to mention, the girl's got brains. 

There's prince Florizel, who has popped out of nowhere and doesn't seem to know a thing about ruling a country. Not to mention the ridiculous ideas he has about food. 

I hope that I have convinced you now: go ahead and read this book - just don't do it while you're in public, because you won't be able to stop snickering and people will think you've gone out of your mind. 

Rating: 

★★★★★

Review: Altaica by Tracy M. Joyce

*I received an eARC of this book on Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review*

"Altaica" is the story of the inhabitants of a small village, who are forced to flee their homeland to save their lives. Their fates become intertwined with those of the clans of Altaica, a far-off land.

Do you think this will be an exciting and interesting journey? Think again.

In this novel, the plot happens in three separate moments: there’s the beginning of the book, with the escape scene, then the story disappears completely until roughly forty percent of “Altaica”, where things start happening again for a couple of chapters. Then the plot disappears again, rearing his head back out only during the last chapters of the novel.

For the rest of the time, the book drags.

Here’s the thing: it’s okay to write a character-driven book, even a character-driven fantasy book. But if you do, you’ve got to write compelling, three-dimensional characters.

There are no compelling, three-dimensional characters in this book. The only two characters that attempt to approach complexity are Elena and Vikram. Vikram is seen so little that he hardly even is a secondary character, so there's not much to say about him, other than I wish he'd been explored more, as he might have been a saving grace. 

Elena is the wife of Curro. Curro is the best friend of our main character (I use the term loosely, as she is unconscious for a good chunk of the book) Isaura.

Elena is jealous of Isaura, because she thinks that she’s going to take Curro away from her. That makes her an awful, awful person, apparently. Despite the fact that she is not completely wrong. Curro does treat Elena and Isaura differently. Isaura is someone he cares about, but she’s first and foremost someone he trusts. He asks her for help, for advice, he’s taught her to defend herself in spite of that being forbidden. Curro treats Elena like a child, like someone he has to take care of. Not only does he never ask her for advice or for help, he’s the one calling all the shots in their relationship, he’s the one making all the choices, uncaring of what she thinks. And to make matters worse, Elena’s not stupid. In fact, she’s right a lot of the time, but does anyone listen to her? No. Caring first and foremost about herself and her loved ones an wanting to survive the journey apparently makes her an heartless bitch.

Elena is not allowed to be complex. She is constantly being relegated to the mean girl role. Almost none of the characters appear to be able to stand her, and they all treat her like an idiot. At one point they even say something along the lines of her having a dark aura.

Her storyline is supposed to show how jealousy corrupts her soul, but the way it’s handled lacks any kind of finesse, because too much emphasis is put on her faults, while her virtues are swept under the rug. 

Isaura, our (kinda) main character is the biggest Mary Sue I have read about in years. Let's do a list of all the things she does, shall we? She is the only female who can handle weapons in her society, and the only one to have an active role in the plans for the escape of the villagers. She’s a skilled healer, which obviously implies training. But she also has the potential to wield huge magical powers and she can do things that ought to have been impossible. And she’s not even a grown woman yet, she’s described as a girl. I shudder at the thought of what she'll be capable of when she hits her thirties. 

Also, of course, she never makes mistakes. And when she blames herself for something, someone else is always ready to point out that it’s really not her fault. She does make a controversial decision at one point in the book, which I appreciated as a brave move from the part of an author who has been playing things pretty safe, but it’s neither morally gray or a mistake. It’s either nothing wrong or something awful, depending on the point of view of the reader.

Lucia and Pio, while not exactly interesting, where not unlikable. I didn’t mind it when the story focused on them. Additionally, Nicanor and Lucia were the only couple whose romance I found believable. In general, the romances are not well-developped, and the characters who are not already together in the beginning of the novel fall madly in love with no transition whatsoever.   

I think that some time must be spared to talk about the villain, since he was so cartoonishly evil that all he lacked was a mustache to twirl while he cackled.

He is introduced by entering a room and randomly attempting to rape a main character and it’s all downhill from there. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, no complexity. And that makes him uninteresting.

Almost all the characters could be summed up in a couple of words, and some of them are even completely devoid of character traits. For example, I wouldn't be able to name one personality aspect of Daniel, who is a character for a huge part of the novel and is part of one of the main romances. 

The inclusion of the Asena, the deus-est-machina (not) wolves, was quite clumsy, as they only appear when they are needed by the story, they are never even mentioned beforehand, despite supposedly being  a huge part of  the culture of Altaica. If they had been built up better, I might have liked the Asena. I have no complains regarding the rest of world-building, which was alright if nothing particularly special and original. 

Additionally, the POV keeps shifting from a character to another, without rhyme of reason (we even get the point of view of a horse at one point), which is annoying at best and confusing at worst.

To sum it up, this is not a good book. In fact, it’s a bad book, and it’s not even memorably bad, it’s boring bad. The kind of bad that means I’m already forgetting what the characters are called, the morning after I finished reading it. The positive aspects are few and far between. 

 Rating: 

★

Review: Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen

**I got this book as an eArc from Netgalley**

The concept of taking a well-known story and shifting the point of view to that of the villain is hardly something new, and it's hard to do it right: the authors that write that kind of book attempt to make it as though the villains are just misunderstood. Villains are fun because of their villainy, not in spite of it. We don't want them to be brave and noble, we have heroes for that. 

Now, let's all give a standing ovation for Lisa Jensen. because she didn't attempt to convince us that Captain Hook has truly been a hero all along. At least in the beginning, he is no hero, he is just sympathetic. The situation he has been forced into is truly horrible, but it is a consequence of his actions.

Hook is a coward, proud to the point of folly, he's convinced that the whole world is out to get him. He went on a crusade to have his revenge on all those who screwed him over, and, trust me, he has a right to be angry. However, he has no right to be downright vicious. 

When he turns against the wrong woman, the voodoo priestess Proserpina, he ends up banished into the Neverland.

The Neverland is the children's dreamland, as full of beautiful, whimsical things as it is of dangerous creatures, and most of the time the inhabitants of the Neverland are both as once: wonderful and deadly.

Children all over the globe need the Neverland, as a safe place where they can live out their dreams and where they can safely explore their fears. As such, even though Peter Pan is cruel and sadistic, he is needed. That way, despite the fact that he is the story's antagonist, he isn't a completely black or white character, just as Hook is morally ambiguous.

Another thing I liked is the fact that the Lost Boy's viscousness is explained: they are children, and as such they don't understand the concept of the fact that actions have consequences. They don't see how killing is not something to be taken lightly, that when they attack and kill the members of Hook's crew, they are harming other human beings, just like them. This is made even plainer by the fact that the pirates are former lost boys.

"Alias Hook" is at its core, a coming-of-age story. There's a reason why Hook's punishment is to be sent to the Neverland. He his, at heart, still a child. He blames other people for his misfortunes, and he refuses to face the consequences of his actions. He longs to escape the Neverland, he'd even prefer death to being stuck there any longer, but he can't until he grows up (metaphorically of course).

There are many other things about the book that I liked: Hook's sense of humor, which was sarcastic and occasionally even laugh-out-loud funny (and trust me, it takes a lot to make me laugh out loud when I'm ready), the side characters, which were quite likable, the mermaids, which were awesome. I can't even remember the last time I read a book where sirens were featured so heavily while remaining pretty awesome. Their nature is a twist that I don't want to spoil, but trust me on this: it's good. The fairies were well-done, too.

And of course, I adored the love story. It has an actual purpose inside the narrative, Hook's love interest is an interesting and likable character in her own right, she doesn't exist just to be his girlfriend. I truly rooted for the two of them, and the development of their relationship felt absolutely normal, there's no insta-love here. 

The only thing I disliked about the novel is that it sometimes it focused a little too heavily on the character development aspects, and a little less on the actual plot. Sometimes nothing much happened for several pages and so the book felt longer than it actually was.

Nevertheless, on the whole it was a fun and interesting read. I definitely recommend it, especially if you like your reads to focus heavily on the psychological aspect of the story. 

Rating: 

★★★★