The giveaway is in the jacket summary: "Bears aren't the only predators in these woods." I love that from cover to cover, from friend-breakup to the wrath of Mother Nature, this is a very female horror story. Girls deserve to be listened to, not to be picked apart, discarded, condescended to or threatened. Yet the reality is that daily life is a struggle, the feeling that one always has to be defending herself. And you would think that with that shared trauma, girls would inherently buoy each other up, but more often than not they make the first cut against each other, following that devolution into Sith territory: Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, Hate leads to Suffering.

The climax is telegraphed from the very first chapter, so I suppose it's not out of nowhere. I do appreciate that there was setup, who doesn't love a Chekov's gun. But it didn't feel personal enough, given what was built up about Josie and Neena. They both grow and change for the better: Josie taking initiative and Neena using her head. But there's something lackluster about them running away to safety instead of making a final stand, or being each other's foils. It's a little selfish and silly of me, though, to say, "Aww man, I wish this was a Supervillain origin story, instead of a message about true friendship." XD So, 5 stars from me, because the failing is in my depraved hopes and expectations, not with any fault in the writing itself.

I wanted to like this book, I did. Representation matters; I am usually all about diving into a fantasy based in folklore that's new to me, and tackles issues from a non-Eurocentric perspective. And this book, turning the school of life experience into a /literal/ school, should have been cool!...

Buuuuuuut this book was clearly not for me. I couldn't get past so many tiny gross details, like the floating corpse bombs that casually detonate scalps and teeth at people. Or even the mundane, realistic details, like the underage smokers. A book which celebrates delinquents as the most magically misunderstood minorities had me clutching my pearls. I know I know, that's the whole point: Gritty things happen in the real world, and kids have to be street smart or die, they don't have the privilege of hiding from danger... BUUUUUT all the same, I want MY kid to learn that it's not okay to run around playing with knives XD. I kept getting caught in my own head, like, "Our hero is 12, and her friends are close to that age, too. Would I want my son, when he turns 12, to be doing aaaaany of this?....NOPE!"

I'm also just mad from a literary standpoint. I didn't like that the book tried to "draw out the tension" by having characters in the know brush off our hero's concerns and queries. "You'll see..." No.... No, at some point our hero should have called out "Stranger Danger!" and walked away from this Ghibilian nightmare! And no no no as well, at some point you really do have to explain the mechanics of this world, or else why should I care about anything that's happening? "Congratulations, you've just learned that you have MAGIC. What kiiiinds of magic? Well, you can have a photographic memory. Or, turn invisible and hop through keyholes. Or, summon a swarm of stinging insects in a people-shaped sack a la Oogie Boogie and send them to sting your enemies to death! How do you gain these super powers? Stick your arm in a box of knives and wait for one to cut you! The knife chooses the wizard! PS, the wise adults charged with mentoring you young magical whippersnappers are going to drug and murder you...heroically, of course..."

And then, for all that the book doesn't explain its magical world well, and doesn't depict tweens I particularly want to get to know any better, THEN... the book takes a hard left turn into magical realism, and just gives us a soccer match, a teen social, and Burning Man, for 200 pages. What is this? Why am I reading this? What does this have to do with magic, or the magical serial killer our magical heroes are supposed to be going to magic school to learn how to defeat?!?! It's African Hogwarts with muggle Quidditch interrupting the quest for Voldemort!

This book was messy, boring, cringey, and ultimately whatever good it might have done by being diverse was undercut by those depictions being unflattering and un-charming.

A suspenseful, moody read. Definitely satisfied the Westworld fan in me, this story of grief cycles and hidden selves told out of order.

I must say, though, I found the whole premise of, "A series of ritualistic murders occurs in this seaside town every summer, and we never buff up the number of police, or rope off the beaches, or put up suicide nets" to be reeeeally unbelievable.

Also, nitpicky, what the heck is this cover? XD It's suuuuuch a witchy cover, but the whole point is that the girls WEREN'T witches. They were just women with passions as turbulent as the sea. Why isn't the cover of this book the island with the lighthouse? Or the ship graveyard near the coast? Or just ocean waves with a spooky silhouette in the water? Who chose this woodsy, witchy cliche? It doesn't match.

Finally, the last 10-20 pages of the book are too drawn out. A lot of repetition, too many endings.... It reminded me of how the final Lord of the Rings movie just couldn't pick an ending. The book tries to be bittersweet, but having the anti-villain cling on to the heroes' Happily Ever After just felt cringey.

But regardless of the few faults I found, Shea Ernshaw has an incredible way with words, and I was completely entranced by this book. Maybe it's not my favorite of hers, but I am definitely hooked on this author.

A fantastic story of dualities/multiplicities of self which defy labels or convention, blending the themes of having multicultural heritage and a transgender/gender fluid identity. This book was heartbreaking in addressing its themes, especially the complicated longing for belonging which may fly in the face of family tradition/sacrifice. And in addressing the constant dread immigrants feel, that their home can be violated and destroyed by forces outside their control. The criticism of ICE policies to break up families got me right in the heart :'(. As well as the scrutiny of erasure, be it cultural appropriation, or assigning temperament and skills to gender.

I did have a few nitpicky issues with the book. The constant references to Harry Potter got to me, same way they did in V.E. Schwab's City of Ghosts. The original content in this book is phenomenal - the tree of life which connects all the families to their common ancestor's country no matter where they immigrate to; the library which expands and summons up relevant texts as needed; the lunar dimension which is a focal point of magical energy... All fantastic, and the constant references to /another book/ make it seem like the author is using Harry Potter as a crutch. You don't have to compare, or use plot beats from another book to explain your book. Trust that your book can stand on its own merits. And no matter how much you love fantasy books, don't make shoutouts to how your book is following in the footsteps of its predecessors, it reads like fanfiction.

Other bit of nitpicking: There is a little too much convenience. Insta-friends, insta-love, a magic vision pool that has all the answers, lots of confessions back to back... There was a lot of tension built up around politics and suspicious peers and hunters and police, nowhere is safe... Only for Manu's found family to forgive her constant lies, team up, and easily escape danger with a simple decoy and magical teleportation. I hope the sequel has a little more finesse and proper conflict.

All in all, I am so proud of this book for bringing loving, thoughtful, respectful attention to two groups in desperate need of a voice and allies. I see you, I hear you. I love this book's representation, I am all here for it!

UGH! This sequel was such a hair-ripping, eye-rolling, time-checking disappointment! The first book was a little simple, but charming, insightful, respectful. I liked the metaphor for the trans/gender fluid/non-binary journey of self-discovery and longing for acceptance. Same with the theme echoes in addressing immigration and multi-ethnicity. I was ready for the characters, conflicts, and themes established in book 1 to grow in book 2.
...
NOPE!
Did you like the secondary characters from the first book? Tough, they won't be present in the sequel. Did you like the /main/ characters? TOUGH, they will all be reduced to Manu's cheerleaders. Did you like the different personalities and how each character brought different perspectives on how to solve problems? TOUGH because now there's RUNNIIIIING, WHEEEEE!!!! Hoping for some deep, morally grey, new characters to flesh out the world and introduce secondary conflicts?! Toooooough, because you will be forced to sit through an endless parade of LGBTQA, PoC, and feminist cliches, introduced solely to state their name and sob story, and then NEVER REAPPEAR!

I am so angry I read this fever dream of a book! The Wonderlandian setting makes no sense, and removes most of the stakes our heroes might face. Cornered in an alley? No problem, step on a mushroom, you'll fall into a dungeon. Dungeon too scary? No problem, there's a puddle on the floor, it will teleport you to an underwater harbor where you can board a submarine. Cross the ocean - just kidding, at its darkest depths the ocean is outer space! What's on the other side of outer space? An apartment complex covered in vampiric vines, where the tenants make friendship bracelets out of leeches! Not sure if you should join the cult of tenants? No problem, the planet is psychic, she'll let you know telepathically whether you're making the right call or not!... Read that back to yourself... Are you as throw-my-hands-up confused as I am? There is barely a way to summarize the plot of this book, because our "heroes" agree out loud "We should avoid the cops", then immediately jump in front of the cops and shout "Na na na na boo boo", and then run for their lives through a 6 year old's crayon drawing!!!

Let me circle back to that LGBTQA cliche parade, though. This book does what BAD queer fiction does:
- Introduces characters by their labels, and uses them for nothing else. Characters are characters! They need to grow or effect the plot in some way. Otherwise, they're not really characters, they're an LGBTQA glossary.
- Ally shaming. Yes, some people who empathize with your cause are going to have come from a place of privilege, and might inadvertently insult you when they mean to help. Don't shame, educate. When you're short on help or hope, don't sneer at people who care about you!
- Everyone treats the main character like their little wubby, and they exist to compliment and validate her, even when she has been a lying, selfish, manipulative, evasive, dangerous, brat! (Seriously, the last 100 pages of this book are Manu on trial, and a stream of characters witnesses who come up to say how marvelous she is... You've known her for 2 months!!! That's it!!! You don't know her!!!!)
- The author overreaches. Yes, there is something thematic about "everybody feels trapped in their own skin". BUT, in drawing this comparison, too many authors are tempted to include an example for each struggle with a token character and a few throwaway lines about how the system is rigged against them. The book just becomes a list.
- Glorifies anarchy. Yes, wouldn't it be sweet if we could simply topple the patriarchy and live happily ever after. But unfortunately, people either fear or abuse change. "Chaos is a ladder." If you don't have any solutions to offer, SOMEBODY is going to take charge in the chaos, and that somebody is usually a dictator preying on people's fears.

A sloppy collection of post-it notes, doodles, and angry tweets about The Man, masquerading as a book.

Grady Hendrix is my truth pebble

I don't understand how Grady Hendrix is a MASTER at writing women's voices, but my goddess!!!... I feel so Seen. The hyper-importance of all the silly minutiae shared with a best friend. The heartbreak of a friend breakup, or falling out with a clique. The loneliness of growing up, changing, watching the people who were your most special someones morph in unrecognizable ways, and just wanting a magic Reset button. The classism and scapegoating that make it so easy to blame and discredit poor, edgy little girls. All of the conspiracy theories of the 80's, the war on drugs, the war for youth culture: to be innocent, or wild. To be "possessed" by the latest fad, or jealousy, or depression. The power of rumors, lies, criticism, even our own self-doubt, to warp reality and drag us down, a depressive force stronger than gravity. To feel disassociated from the teenage years, that hellion wasn't me, not who I want to be....

Standing. Freaking. Ovation!!!!!! Grady Hendrix can do no wrong!!!!!

You can tell that this is VES's early writing, because for the first 200 pages it lacks any of the ambience and metaphor that her better, more recent writing has. The story itself is redundant, and not in a fun, lyrical, fairytale way, or a cyclical, But This Time The Protagonist Has Learned Something, kind of way. The story just trudges: Onto the moor, and back to bed, onto the moor, and back to bed, onto the moor, and back to bed. Certain characters (Bo, Tomas, Magda, Dreska) are built up, but there's no real payoff, they just sort of fizzle into the background. Lexi's links to her father and to nature are never quite driven home (why doesn't she get a magical girl upgrade into witch by the finale?! How is SHE not the new Near Witch!).

That said, after the halfway point, the writing did start to pick up considerably. And the short story insert, The Ash-Born Boy, should have absolutely been included as a proper part of the book. This should have been a dual PoV book: Lexi, a witch of the land, and Cole/William, a witch of the sky, brought together in this tempestuous place where storms and marsh consume what once was, and all that remains are stories... There is a theme throughout of "imprints", what gets left behind is incomplete but gives us a picture, a piece of the story: Lexi tracking footprints, her mother kneading her grief into her bread dough, bruises and scars Lexi and Will both obtained from abusers, the moor itself scarred with burns or collapsing from rot... There was something too in trying to link the importance of stories, how they change with retellings, and the cycle of nature... But I felt like I was looking at a spread of Tarot cards without a manual to consult to read them, having to search too hard for the meaning the author wanted me to find.

I would 1,000% love to see VES revisit this book and rerelease it, revised, as a special edition or something. I think she can get deeper and tighter than this (nobody make a crass joke). I also DESPERATELY want a crossover!!! The Ash-Born Boy was MADE to be the prequel to Shades of Darkness:
"He led her through a vine-wrapped arch into his mother's pride and joy, the Great House gardens. They were not groomed, but wild, tangled and free as they might be on the moors."
"Will pulled free and stormed back to the steps, clutching his pendant as the mood coiled around him, inside him. 'Untangle,' he begged as he climbed the steps. 'Untangle. Untangle. Untangle.' But as he reached the top, he felt the power choking him. He felt helpless, hopeless. He wanted to scream. He was sick of smothering the magic and himself. He wanted to let go, not as he had in the garden, or in his room, but really, truly let go. Was there no way to be free?"
"At first he resisted, but then he realized, with a hollow kind of grief, that there was no reason to hold back now. He could have power or people, but never both, and now the people were gone [...] He walked until he was no longer the heir of Dale, or the callous prince, or William Hart. He walked until he was simply a shadow..."
.... TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE ORIGIN STORY OF OSARON?!?! Will can even teleport, and he slashes his arm to focus his control - how is he not the first Antari!?!?! Tell me the realm of pure magic gone rampant, the home of Black London, isn't born from THIS, from a place where elements caroused with humans until one stormy little boy destroyed it all! Tell me Holland spreading greenery back into the realm isn't like recognizing like, magic welcoming its own home, the land of elements awakening again after being rotted by Cole/Will/Osaron for so long. Tell me Cole/Will/Osaron gave in to magic, let the chaos rule him, and was found and saved by Holland, the icy boy with all the self-control. It. FITS. So. PERFECTLY!!!

Come on, VES! I dare you. This book as it is is fine, but it has sooooo much potential. I know VES could pull it off, she's got the skills now.

This book was FLAWLESS!!! <3 Score infinity points for positive representation! I love all the different types of vampirism, from classically seductive and territorial, to more metaphorical like helicopter parents and privileged descendants of colonials! Outstanding! My only negative feedback is that now I'm hungry for more! XD I would easily have read any one of these short stories as a full length novel or series. In fact, many of them read like the first chapter, or first few chapters, in a book, rather than a complete short story.

Give me more vampires!!! Thank you to everyone who worked on this book, it is a TREASURE!

Sure fine, Harry is Jesus. But The Prince's Tale means everything to me, and all the camping, griping, martyring, and deus ex machina-ing was WORTH IT to see my favorite super spy vindicated.

I am extremely thankful that this third book was a massive improvement from book 2, and a return to the banter, charm, decadent world, and empowering message that made me fall in love with the first book. This book had heart. I wanted to get lost in this world, again. I wanted to root for these characters.

But it also had many flaws.

The pacing is still terrible. Very slow, a lot of redundancies, a lot of speculation. After 1,500 combined pages the jokes have gone stale. It's tiresome to hear Poppy stabbed Cas once, Poppy EEPed at nudity, Cas quoted Willa's diary... And while obviously a book needs to describe new settings, I started going numb to all the lifeless descriptions of flowers, architecture, clothing, and pelts. I was reminded of how Tolkien fans got tired of hearing about foliage, or GRR Martin fans got tired of feasts. And yet, despite all the words written... I still don't have a clear concept of the hierarchy of creatures, what makes the difference between a god, a deity, an Atlantian, an Ascended... I don't understand why or how mortals can serve in the highest seats of government in the hidden Atlantian city. There are characters who have traveled as our heroes' inner circle whose race, appearance, personality, significance... I could not tell you. (What do we know, really, about Emil, Naill, or Delano?!) And new characters that were introduced were... problematic. They seemed included just to have "a black girl" or "a gay guy" name dropped, and then never included in the plot in any meaningful way, barely even mentioned again after their introduction. Token representation. Bait. This book and the last should have been condensed into one: The book could have focused on establishing the core characters and the hidden world that Poppy was naive about; Poppy and Casteel could have grown and fallen back in love over the course of one long book; it could have ended with Poppy falling in love with Cas's found family, and claiming her birthright to protect them, looking out on the horizon from the capital as tomorrow's problems have finally become today's...

Speaking of sloppy characterization... Cas continues to be disorienting, with his constant colloquial curses, PDA, innuendo, and attention called to his erections (even in front of his own parents!). I'm personally disgusted that he keeps trying to solve trauma with sex. He even, at one point, insists that true love can only be found by people who lust for each other. He is still condescending at times, like when he makes a joke with Poppy about compromising over not executing people without fair trial... a compromise he doesn't intend to keep. Her first attempt at governing as Queen is to show mercy, and he tries to undermine her... Not a good start. He still reads like a "bro" too much of the time, and takes me out of the story, like I'm suddenly in 50 Shades of Grey.

And speaking of feeling like I'm in another book... Too much of this book felt like a ripoff of Game of Thrones, and I couldn't understand if it was meant to be a parody, an homage, or if the author wasn't aware of how much pop culture had seeped into her writing. And frankly... if I can't tell... then it's not ENOUGH for a parody, and not subtle enough to be an homage. But Poppy's many titles, the insistence on "My Queen", "Meyaah Liessa", waking the dragons in The Shadowlands to the east, fighting the army of the undead, summoning fire to obliterate her enemies... This is Daenerys fanfiction. Even some of the phrasing: War of the Two Kings/ War of the Five Kings. From Blood and Ash/Fire and Blood... I know GRR Martin doesn't have a monopoly on high fantasy phrases, and even his books are based on real history. But... Crown of Gilded Bones/ A Golden Crown... Too many to be a coincidence.

When the book is trying to be original, it's also aware that it wrote itself into too big of a situation, so conflicts just... magically go away. "We need to convince Cas's parents that we're worthy! Just kidding, they love us immediately." "The people will never accept us, and revolt! Just kidding, they all bend the knee with glee." "The Ascended are at Spessa's End and The Atlantian's are circling Carssadonia, war is imminent! Just kidding, no one will attack, everything's fine." "Poppy has been kidnapped, AGAIN! No worries, her assailants are all murdered. But Cas, Kieran, and the gang were shot with paralysis arrows! No, it's fine, they came to the rescue, no problem." "Poppy is dead. No, she's a vampire! No, she's a goddess! No, she's a messiah? No, she's... a plot coupon." After so many false starts, I didn't really take the tension seriously anymore, and was just rushing to the ending.

So... a pretty painting with lots of feeling. But derivative, vapid, and far too long without having much of a message to say.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that this book didn't age well. It was published in 2021, which means it was written during the pandemic. And a new sect of monsters and baddies are introduced: Creatures without mouths or noses, only eyes visible on their faces, and their wranglers are a masked cult... Poppy's only concern about them is "How do they breathe?"... The creatures are called "Gyrms"... GERMS!... YIKES! O_O Somebody was reeeeeally anti-mask mandate.