A perennial recommendation on this sub that I finally picked up for cheap at my local used bookstore. In a phrase, it lives up to the hype. I wanted a quick, fun read after Exquisite Corpse and to balance out a book on wildfire management I'm simultaneously reading. This was both more fun and more poignant than I expected it to be - it's like a rumination on growing up and the magic you see in the world fading with experience. And yet there's still a celebration of that mystery that lurks everywhere as opposed to the easier pathway of detached irony that hits so many people once they turn 24 and decide the world isn't good enough for them anymore.

A book like this shows you that irony is both easy and cowardly; true bravery in the world is thinking it's worth loving anyway. I love how much of a "fractured fairy tales" approach this book has in deconstructing myths and shocking people when they turn out to be true anyway, but without the coyness that "deconstruction" is often associated with nowadays. The ending felt a bit long, and I could've had more of the winsomeness of the beginning before things got dour (and slow) in the castle.