𝓕𝓲𝓻𝓮𝓫𝓸𝓻𝓷: 𝓣𝔀𝓮𝓵𝓿𝓮 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓕𝓻𝓸𝔃𝓮𝓷 𝓕𝓻𝓸𝓼𝓽 is a wonderfully engaging story about a young girl named Twelve, in training to be a Hunter. In this world, a Hunter is one who keeps the peace of the realm, by slaying in monsters who work to do harm. Twelve, a Huntling, is plagued by the memories  of her life prior to coming to the Lodge (the Hunter training Academy, essentially) and is determined to seek vengeance on those who did her family wrong.

But nothing is what it seems.

I slightly consider this book to be a fantasy coming of age story in that, Twelve really grows as a character across the span of the entire book. It is a naturally occuring type of development - it doesn't happen immediately, but we see Twelve grow as her perspective grows of the world, of her tightly held prejudices. 

If I sound vague it is deliberate! Purely because so many things that I want to say about the plot are incredibly spoilery! So, vague it must be.

Reading this book, I had a lot of fun. I don't typically read middle grade but this sounded like the pure escapism I wanted. Action-packed with an unpredictable plot, it literally has everything you could ever want in a story. I found that the writing was wonderful and the care that was taken to showcase Twelve's character as she is. She is not perfect at all. She is flawed, traumatised and lonely and I adored that Aisling Fowler did not run away from portraying a young main character in this way. 

Can we also appreciate that one of the side characters, Five, is queer? I smiled so hard when I realised because representation in a middle grade is so freaking fantastic and something that I wished I had when I was growing up!In terms of the story, when I say it was unpredictable, I am not even exaggerating. I did not expect the twist and turns of this story, when Twelve and the gang were surprised, I was surprised! It was as if I was with them, finding out betrayals and realising how everything links. Also learning about the world and the different types of monsters, as well as starting to find out more information about the different clans and the way that this world is governed, was quite interesting. I think the monsters were so imaginative and exciting as well as terrifying! 

When reading this however, I knew that I was not the target demographic so the small issues that I had was mainly me. I found the exerpts from the beastiary slightly annoying and information dumpy as these excerpts interspersed throughout the story was the only way we really got information about the monsters which felt clunky to me. However, for younger readers, this is fantastic. See? These issues stem from me being me. I also thought that the way that some of the Elders of the Hunting Lodge would just bow to the demands and strategy of Twelve. Twelve I believe is 13 years old with very little actual Hunting experience, only that which occurred throughout the story. So we have these Elders who have years upon years of battle experience, listening to a 13 year old girl. It was one of the only aspects of the story that I was a bit doutbful about.</p>

But other than that, I really enjoyed it. I highly, highly recommend it for lovers of middle grade! I gave it 4 stars.