Thank you to the author and YA Bound Book Tours for providing me with a e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I will preface this review by saying that I cried my eyes out for the last four chapters of this book and a good while afterwards as well. I’m pretty sure I lost 20 kilos just from the water coming out of my eyes (although maybe I retained a bit of that weight when it dried on my cheeks). Although, if I had lost 20 pounds I would be pretty unhealthy right now, so perhaps its better that that was simply a MASSIVE hyperbole (are massive and hyperbole redundant? I think so…). Before I manage to ramble myself into next year (more hyperbole and some other fancy-sounding technique as well, probably) here is the actual review.
There were a few typos. We all have typos. Sometimes typos get missed. It’s not the end of the world and it wasn’t every page or even every chapter, so I think it gets a pass.
I loved the main character’s relationship with her brother. I wish my sister liked me that much. Of course, I know she loves me and Cole loved Lily too, but the sheer friendship between them as well as their siblingly (I mean you get ‘sisterly’ and ‘brotherly’ why not ‘siblingly’….) love is gorgeous and obviously a major thing in this book if you do end up reading it.
I will admit that the summary is pretty misleading; I went into it expecting something entirely different than what I got. Whilst this might not necessarily be a bad thing, it was different so much that you might not like the type of book you’re getting yourself into based on the summary. However, you are in (somewhat) safe, (somewhat) reliable hands as I will tell you who I would recommend this book to at the end of my review! Just know that although the summary mentions not going in the West Wing, this has zero correlation to Beauty and the Beast.
I loved the world. And in a way, the summary did that well. Mysterious enough. An easter egg for those who read it. The world was beautiful and rich, but I wish could have seen more. Likewise with the variety of characters; especially the side characters. That really was a running theme when I was thinking about what to say about this book: I love things, but I needed more of them. I wanted to see more of the side characters, because there were characters I found interesting that I think I could have loved if I had spent more time with them, seen more of their personality. The romance could be incredible if we saw their relationship more. I’m not 100% sure of the timeline of this novel, but I felt like we needed more scenes, especially with how much character development takes place. This is a really short book- only 144 pages- and I feel like it could have benefited from being longer, but, of course, what is there is great! I also kind of wish we got more background about the very first location, as I am still slightly (I have no idea) why that hospital? was it a hospital? was there. Although that might just be me not picking up on details.
In conclusion, I really liked this book and gave it 4 stars but I wish I had more. I would recommend this book who like subtle allegories and very bittersweet feelings in their books. I would recommend it to lovers of a more whimsical yet not fantasy (almost magical realism, yet certainly fantastical enough to be fantasy).
Hopefully I should have some non-review posts up this weekend (depending on how quickly I manage to get my homework done). Happy reading, Keira x.
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