This book was very good up until about halfway through. At that point the story shifted from being about a young woman subverting the social structure of Victorian England by rising to the most powerful position in the country based on her OWN SKILLS, to focusing on her self-loathing for not telling the male authorities in her life that other males think she is not what the male authorities told her she was. Add to that brain-twister the fact that the center of the book is basically a series of young men parading past the protagonist for the reader to pick which one they would like her to pair up with.

I cannot believe how far this book fell. The only reason I am not giving it 1 star is because the beginning was very good. We need more YA books with female protagonists who rise in society because of their own strength, abilities, and will (rather than because they are "destined" or gain the attention of a guy). This book had a lot of potential, but failed to follow through with that strong message. It's almost as if the author chickened out halfway through or was forced by the publisher to tone things down and make the protagonist more "realistic" to expected gender norms of weak, self-hating women. Hey, if it happens every day to young women in high school, why shouldn't it happen in the escapist books they read as well?

The story started out strong, but after the halfway point, I didn’t know why I was reading anymore. I love the Robin Hood legend, but apart from the twist at the beginning, there is nothing original about this retelling. I enjoyed watching how Marian became “Robin Hood,” but after she succeeds, there’s really nothing to keep the excitement going.

One of the main parts of the Robin Hood tale is its impermanence. Eventually, Robin is going to be stopped or found out or killed, but when Robin is Marian, whose status is usually what saves Robin in the end, the situation becomes more confusing and less interesting.

I didn’t finish this novel because I wasn’t interested in watching “Robin’s” slow decline. Maybe someone who prefers that part of the Robin Hood tale to the cheerful heists and robberies would enjoy the entire book.

This book tried to do a lot and tackle a lot of issues, but despite its beautiful writing and compelling characters, the story ended up getting very muddled. Character motivations changed every other page, vacillating between opposing desires so that I often didn’t know what the character cared about most. There were three separate and completely compelling plots going on simultaneously that failed to weave together. While I gobbled up this book, it ultimately left me disappointed because I had lost sight of the plot completely and have no idea if the protagonist achieved what she wanted or not. Looking back, it was never really clear.

An ambitious and commendable story, that would have been better as three separate novels.