A fresh and well-executed YA fantasy/mystery/romance
A really solid and well-executed YA fantasy mystery! We following Marlow, who needs to find out what happened to her mother, and avoid getting permanently maimed by the gangs who have it out for her, and navigate the drama of her snobby rich ex-peers, and also work through her feelings for one of said ex-peers and keep him alive. I liked her POV, she's resourceful and snarky. The internal angst felt believable, the dresses were all ridiculous, and that one ballon ride fake date was cute.
There were a lot of cool elements to the world, especially the way magic works. Spell-crafting (and its counterpart curse-breaking) have in-world history, and its production and use have economic and political implications that I thought were cleverly integrated into the story. The small details like how the rich people enchanted butterflies to follow them around as part of their costume made the world come alive. For me that was the strongest element of the book, and I hope we get more of this in the next book.
The plot itself was much more political than I expected but I ended up enjoying it (to the credit of the author, who I think paced the story well). At the core of the mystery is the political machinations of the ruling families and the fight for power between different factions. I enjoy watching how political maneuvering bleeds into personal drama, so this worked for me. And I liked that this is a queer-normative world.
Overall, I think this is a very well-executed YA fantasy/mystery/romance, with a good balance of all those elements. It felt fresh but not groundbreaking, but I still had a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience. The story ends on a cliff-hanger, and I'm excited to read the next book.
There were a lot of cool elements to the world, especially the way magic works. Spell-crafting (and its counterpart curse-breaking) have in-world history, and its production and use have economic and political implications that I thought were cleverly integrated into the story. The small details like how the rich people enchanted butterflies to follow them around as part of their costume made the world come alive. For me that was the strongest element of the book, and I hope we get more of this in the next book.
The plot itself was much more political than I expected but I ended up enjoying it (to the credit of the author, who I think paced the story well). At the core of the mystery is the political machinations of the ruling families and the fight for power between different factions. I enjoy watching how political maneuvering bleeds into personal drama, so this worked for me. And I liked that this is a queer-normative world.
Overall, I think this is a very well-executed YA fantasy/mystery/romance, with a good balance of all those elements. It felt fresh but not groundbreaking, but I still had a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience. The story ends on a cliff-hanger, and I'm excited to read the next book.