Also posted at Short & Lazy Book Reviews.

I gave this a solid three stars because that’s what it feels like. I like the book, but it’s nothing incredible or mind blowing. It’s an important book that will mean a lot to many people (I wish I’d had this when I was still a teen growing up in NY!), but for me right now, it’s just a solid book.

We follow Miles as he deals with being a high school kid, having a crush on a girl, worrying about his parents’ financial issues, wondering if he has bad blood in his veins like his uncle Aaron. Oh, and being Spider-Man, of course.

I found this book presented a very different take on the Spider-Man dilemma: it’s not just about Miles’ personal life, but his personal life in that it represents an entire livelihood, his way out and up. I really liked this aspect of it, which made the actual super villain (if you can call it that?) plot fall a little flat for me. I can absolutely see where Reynolds was coming from and going with the idea, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way.

Like I said, I gave this three stars overall because I liked it for what it is – an important book with some good storytelling that kind of falls flat in the end for me.

Those who are not being dragged to their deaths cannot understand how the heart grows hard and sharp, until it is a nest of rocks with only an empty egg in it. I am barren; nothing will grow from me any more. I am the dead fish drying in the cold air. I am the dead bird on the shore. I am dry, I am not certain I will bleed when they drag me out to meet the axe. No, I am still warm, my blood still howls in my veins like the wind itself, and it shakes the empty nest and asks where all the birds have gone, where have they gone?

Damn, this book.

Stayed up all night to read this in one sitting. I don't have the words for how beautiful this book is.

Actual review also posted at Short & Lazy Book Reviews:

I started this on a whim and ended up reading it late into the night in one sitting. What a magical, wonderful, powerful, painful, engrossing piece of work.

Every character touched on in this is fascinating. Though there are two main characters that the book surrounds, each secondary character feels like a fully developed and real person despite some having very little page time.

I do have to warn that this novel is dark and doesn’t stray from the darkness that surrounds the topic it covers, but…it’s a beautiful way of writing about it, with absolutely none of the sleaziness that a lot of slash-and-kill thrillers write about crime and violence. Every character makes sense. Every scene is beautiful, even when painful. The ending is optimistic without losing any of it’s realism — which is a bit amusing to write, considering half the novel deals with the power of imagination in dealing with trauma.

The last time I can remember wanting to immediately re-read a novel when I finished the last page was with Burial Rites, another novel that deals with cold and dark themes but is beautiful and treats them with respect and weight.

I want everyone to read this book even though I know the topics within are very tough to deal with. IT’S JUST SO GOOD, OKAY???