Nessa is 14 years old and is living in a very different Ireland from today. The Aes Sidhe are back for revenge after being tricked by the Irish of old into getting trapped in The Grey Land. Now, Ireland is cut off from the rest of the world - no-one can get in or out - and the teenagers living on the island are being Called by the Sidhe, disappearing from our world and reappearing in theirs to be hunted and tortured. Irish teenagers are now being specially trained to try and survive their Call but Nessa is crippled due to childhood polio and no-one believes she can possibly outrun the dangerous Fae.

This was such a great book and a haunting, thrilling read. I loved that even though the Ireland this book is set in is very different to the Ireland I'm living in today it still felt very real and authentic. I enjoyed all the dialogue and liked that a majority of the people, especially teenagers, spoke gaelic (or Sidhe language). The teens just felt very Irish to me but there was also other characters in the book who weren't Irish such as the instructor and survivor Nabil who is French and Muslim, the American Sergeant Taft who used her entrapment in Ireland to teach the young how to survive the Sidhe. I also enjoyed that Nessa had a disability - she is crippled due to childhood polio, an illness that couldn't be treated because Ireland is cut off from the rest of the world and its medical resources, and her disability is used against her by other characters a lot and she has to fight every day to make others believe she can survive the Call, and at least deserves the chance to train to survive. I love how she finds ways to use her disability to her advantage - her legs are weak so she makes her arms and upper body incredibly strong, she can't run so she makes crutches out of tree branches to fly along the ground. She was a great character with a lot of visible and invisible struggles and she was great to watch as she grew and developed and got over some of her challenges, particularly the emotional ones.

This book is fast-paced and doesn't take much time to read once you get into the book but it's a scary one. It as scary for me in how it implied things but didn't describe everything. It's very clear in the book that nine out of ten teenagers will be killed during their Call and more often than not, the things done to them by the Sidhe are dreadful. The characters we do get to know and read their Call - none of their injuries are described in full or in detail but it's still enough to keep your fear up and your pulse racing. I was so scared for all the characters as you just had no idea who would survive or not.


I think the one thing for me that I didn't like was the age of Nessa and her friends, and Anto. I would have preferred for them to be older as they seemed a lot older. They were not characters that read young. For me, Nessa and Anto would have all read from 16-18, definitely not 14.

Overall, I loved this book. It was so thrilling and had me on the edge of my seat. I really recommend this book to everyone, especially those who love reading books about Ireland, Irish folklore and Irish people in general!