I am having such a difficult time reviewing this one, so I’m going to keep it very light.

The short story: this book wasn’t my cup of tea…

First of all, to be totally fair for this review, I had extremely high hopes for it based on all of the positive reviews I was seeing. I tried to go in with an open mind, but I think I was expecting something more folklore-based, and something much darker.

Second, I had read and adored Certain Dark Things by this author, so I was looking for something similar to that. Totally unfair, I know!

And third, I will remind anyone reading this that YA just isn’t always my favorite genre. So where I was expecting this to be more “mature” if you will (I know that sounds rough), it fell quite flat for me as it seemed more middle-grade than YA. And before anyone gets annoyed, I’m NOT knocking this book for being YA. I totally should have been more aware going in so my expectations were more fitting!

What I enjoyed:
- The overall atmosphere
- The descriptive writing
- The Mexican folklore elements
- In the beginning, how strong and curious the main character was

What I didn’t enjoy:
- The repetition, which really bogged down the reading experience for me
- The overlapping timelines when they added more repetition than I felt was necessary
- The overall plot and how everything turned out
- The lack of more in-depth information about the folklore
- How immature the main character seemed at times
- The pacing
- The romance

My Favorite Passages:
Casiopiea Tun was off into the world, not in the way she had imagined, but off nevertheless.

Not that she had pictured ghosts as people wearing sheets, with two holes cut out for their eyes, or as wispy, floating apparitions. She hadn’t thought they’d be as frightening as they’d been. Nor that they might try to eat her.

Ah, there is none more fearful of thieves than the one who has stolen something, and a kingdom is no small something.

She felt boneless, a flower with a broken stem, and if he had not held her she would have fallen to her knees.

The things you name do grow in power, but others that are not ever whispered claw at one’s heart anyway, rip it to shreds even if a syllable does not escape the lips.

My Final Thoughts:
For me, this was a solid two star read… I just didn’t enjoy it. If about 100 pages had been cut from this, I may have enjoyed it more.

Just a few days after finishing the read, I’ve already forgotten a lot about what I had read… So clearly this one won’t be sticking with me.

Of course, that all being said, I would still highly recommend this book to fans of YA tales that center around romance and growing up.