It's hard to put what I thought about this book into words, but that's all I have so here we go!

I'll start off by saying that I REALLY liked this book. It was just... so beautifully written. I'd say it falls into the familiar genre of "young adolescent stumbles upon a beautiful magical world right under their nose and gets involved in a life changing adventure" expect it dials that up to 100. It contains the mystical whimsy of a fantasy world that calls back to Narnia or Hogwarts, but this is very much written for a more adult crowd. The storytelling is beautiful, specifically the interlaced fairy tales that seem to be novel to this book, which add both context and magic to the setting.

With all of that being said, I can't ignore the shortcomings of this book. It is a CUMBERSOME read. Once the book fully transitions from the "real" world to the "fantasy" world in Act 2ish, I found it INCREDIBLY hard to follow what was happening. Everything was so tied up in metaphors and imagery, there was no real plot, or story, or motivation for why the characters were doing anything. The characters themselves felt underdeveloped. Certain characters of the magical world were definitely designed to be aloof and mystical, but even the characters who were supposed to be more "grounded" didn't feel very fleshed out. There was almost zero character growth among the entire cast, and really, the story just happened TO them, rather than having an active role in any of it, which I found lazy. The pacing was very strong in the first two acts, moving from the real world, then "dabbling" in the new magical world, to fully immersed in the story of the magical world. But this is ripped away in the rest of the book, pulling you back to reality for seemingly no reason.

All of these flaws would generally have diminished my love for a book but DAMN if the writing didn't save it. At the end of the day, the setting and overall story was just so beautiful and inspiring, that I couldn't help loving it.