The author has a strong voice, which is hobeslty the only good thing I can say about this book. His voice doesn't suit this type of book and only servers to try and distract the reader from how dry the plot it by dragging it out with flowery prose. 

I was expecting something more to happen. I kept waiting for a big reveal like MIM being an unreliable Narrator but it never came. it ended the exact way I expected it to from that start. 

MIM is not a character, but she is THE Main Character. she has no personality outside of being the main character through which the author can use for his flowery prose. it's hard to connect with her because she has 0 substance, a character of what it's like to be a teenager. She thinks she's so strange because she's watched Lord of the Rings and no on rthe planet has ever heard of Lod of the Rings except her. 

The road trip lacks any sort of adventure. it's buried under flowery prose that make it hard to sort out what's happening let alone get invested in the adventure. there's no Suspense because MIM, despite being the smartest human and most thoughtful and introspective person to ever live, can't piece together what the reader does within the first 10% of the book.

Everything around MIM including MIM herself is awful. 

MIMs parents are awful too. she trues to give us stories to like her dad but it's just her dad showing her how to smoke and then getting her to kill fireflies with a bat. MIM mocks the appearance of everyone she meets, calls her friend with a disability her "pet" (she takes him to the vet too but given that the hospital was closed it does kinda feel like something a bunch of worried teenagers would do but that was not necessary for the story at all), and uses lipstick as "Cherokee warpaint". There's more, but this book certainly doesn't treat anything with empathy or sensitivity. 

also it's so unbelievable. there's a bus crash and no police involved? she gets caught by the police and just lies and runs away? she can't be tracked by the name she used to pay for the bus ticket in the first place (MIM is too obsessed with calling herslef Mary Iris Malone I don't think she could handle using a fake name to buy a bus ticket). 

I'm not sure the author has ever ridden a long haul bus anywhere in his life. as someone who serially has taken 8h overnight busses, none of this is accurate. 

This was a solid 3 star read until the end, which made me teary. Much like Wall-E, this book has so much heart and adventure. it felt very unique and imaginative as Roz figures out how to survive and navigate nature. I can see kids eating this up. 

I also adored that it was filled with little drawing from the author. the copy I read also had additional sketches in the back and you can tell thst he had an overwhelming creative vision for this novel. I believe he achieved it! 

Might visit the rest of the series in the future as the ending is very open, bordering on a cliffhanger. 

the books is *good*. holly black is a good writer. however, I don't get why we needed this. it's not really adding anything to the sequel. 

I liked the chapters from the prince's point of view. I think if we'd gone more into the politics this would have been way cooler since that would have actually added to the movies and fleshed out the world more. 

the relationship between Maleficent and Aurora was great as well. Again, if it had been fleshed out a little bit more I would have been all over this book. 

it's good but undercooked.

I've been waiting for this book since I read book 3 in this series. It delivered on everything I wanted, had a compelling, magical world and served as great characterization for Nadya, my favourite Drowned Girl. 

I found the pacing in this book very off. It felt too long at some points, which is an issue I usually do not have with this series. It felt like we spent so much time in some areas, going over the same ideas over and over again instead of moving the book along. It's very noticeable when this book is so short, I should not have felt like the first half was a slog. 

Other than that, no issues. Loved this installment. We should have had it wayyyy earlier, but at least we have it now. 

Just realized I've definitely covered enough readings in this book across multiple classes to count it as "read".

Ah this is hard to give 2 stars. My main issue with this book is the writing style. I have no idea if I need to blame my unfamiliarity with Japanese works, the translation, or the author himself. Maybe it is a combination of all three. Either way, the writing style needs serious help and it had me struggling with this book. 

There are some great concepts in this book, and despite my reservations I found that there was some good development happening with Subaru as he started to piece together this new world. I'm not quite sure where "time travel" as said on the back of the book comes into play, unless it's a very liberal translation of the Groundhog Day trope which is the point of the plot. 

To begin, the author breaks the cardinal rule of show don't tell. Then he Repeats it again, telling us information we received in the sentence before. Then her summarizes the characters actions in terms of this new revelation and before we know it we've spent a paragraph beating the reader over the head with easy to understand information. 

Then we bring it up three scenes later just in case they did not understand the first time. 

This book is quite short yet it felt padded  with excess information that could have been cut for pacing. I found the book incredibly slow to get through. Many scenes dragged on longer than they needed to. 

Lastly, despite having graphic fight scenes with blood and gore, the majority of this book felt incredibly juvenile. I'm blaming a lot of that on the dialogue. It felt straight out of a children's cartoon in a way that does not translate well on paper. Characters, but especially the MC Subaru, would have these out of pocket, dramatic outburst all the time, escalating situations for no reason. I see it in cartoons and it works in that medium, but I found it very jarring on page, especially one that it aimed at older teens. 

I am curious if the writing gets better in future installments as the epilogue got me more invested in the story. More happened in that one scene than the rest of the book combined. 

I was also personally taking a lot of enjoyment from an Ice Magic welder named Elsa who, based in the book being published in 2014 and being a blog before that, likely predates Disney's Elsa. 

There are some good *ideas* here, but this is not a book. It's a first draft. It is in desperate need of an editor (probably more). 200 pages need to be cut.

The dual perspective is pointless, especially when the characters are in the same room. They serve nothing for the plot and don't make Kai seem intimidating at all.

The entire plot happens because people are so interested in the FMC that they vote her into a death tournament to learn more about her. HUH? This would make more sense if the government put her in there to try and kill her without public outrage because she's an Ordinary. Death tournament = cool idea. Ordinaries = cool idea. None of this is well executed, or executed at all in some cases. They're just ideas, floating around waiting for the reader to prescribe them meaning and context that does not exist in the text. This has the unfortunate effect of making one think about this book and question things, which makes the entire thing unravel.

The Rebellion is so underdeveloped it seems like a random thing the author forgets about until she doesn't. Again, there are good ideas here like the Ordinaries and the dangerous Elites working together because of the oppression they face, however, there is no discussion of infighting. Of course, there would be infighting! Especially between the Ordinaries and the Elites. It would make more sense for there to be two separate rebel groups working together begrudgingly. Also, they are so incompetent. They just reveal themselves to the MC. A lot of their plans make more sense and they seem to exist more as an info dump than as a functional piece of the plot.

I don't really blame the author. This reads like a first draft, it likely is a first draft. The publisher should have pushed for the multiple rounds of edits that this book needed.

This honestly could have been great. I was excited to read it because I remember enjoying Red Queen. Instead, it's a baby's first draft poorly mimicking Red Queen and doing nothing original or interesting.

It's likely been a decade since I first read this book. It's just as amazing as I remember. Certainly feels a lot different than the rest of the series with its emphasis on battling and battle tactics over cultural worldbuilding. 

I know I should have reread those before endeavoring to read the entire series but there was a (well deserved) long wait at the library for it.

Highly reccomend this to someone who enjoyes a slow fantasy and amazing characters.