I really wanted to like this book. I had hopes for this book after reading How to Get a Girlfriend. I wanted to see what would happen with Sian and Trillin and how they would navigate this “interspecies” relationship. But book two went in a completely different direction. It took me a while to figure out the Endless and how the magic on earth worked in book one. Then book two was set in a completely new world with a different kind of magic. I’m still not sure I fully understand it other than it’s some kind of horribly f*cked up version of a fairy tale in essentially an alternate earth. And book one was more in the science fiction realm whereas book two felt much more like fantasy. It almost felt like a completely different story at times.

Trillian and Sian get separated early on in the book and spend a majority of the book apart. Maybe if they had been navigating the challenges of this new world together instead of apart I might have gotten more invested in the story as a whole. But there was no relationship building, which was the part I was most looking forward to in this book. We don’t get to see their relationship develop at all. And yet [SPOILER] - they still end up falling in love somehow. Even though they’ve hardly spent more than a day(?) together.

I know other people have loved it and I genuinely wanted to love it, too. But it just didn’t hit the mark for me. I know it will be someone else’s cup of tea, it just wasn’t mine.

I received an ARC of this book from the author and this is my honest review.