Ahoy there me mateys!  This 2017 Newbery winner sounded awesome and has a lot of good things going for it.  While the prose in this book was divine, a lot of the joy came from the narration by Christina Moore.  I don't know that I would have finished this if not for the audiobook.  I have to admit that I liked the 2017 Newbery honor book wolf hollow a lot better structurally even though the writing wasn't quite as lyrical.

The main issue is that this book was too long.  I loved the first half despite its slow pace. However once the "build-up" for the end began, it had at least five potential endings and just kept going.  The explanations for the world building and the characters' actions also didn't really make enough sense.  I enjoyed that the adults made mistakes but the solution to the world's problems was some woo woo waving of arms.

This was one of those books where it started out so strong and I was convinced I was looking at a new favourite . . . until main character's enchantment ends.  Then the rating kept getting chipped away because it felt so nonsensical.

The writing really was quite beautiful and I loved a lot of the imagery and characterization.  I just feel this book could have benefited from some massive pruning and editing.  A lot of the repetitive description could have been removed and streamlined.  A cohesive whole is in there somewhere.  So I can see the bones for a Newbery but I don't believe it should have won.  Arrrr!