Short version: "I confess myself... disappointed."

Longer version: This book doesn't reward you for reading it. The premise isn't exactly fresh: Elemental gods, a realm full of sorcerers and commoners, a race to find magical doohickeys, the strength of sisterhood or true love... It's been done. But, giving the premise a chance, I was further disappointed by:
1) Characters jumping to conclusions because the author wanted to further the plot in the right direction. Everybody has a sixth sense about who is trustworthy and who's not, or about where they need to be/what they need to do... There is no lasting intrigue, mystery, suspense, betrayal... Everyone gets exactly what they need, from people or plot, quickly, easily, and often nonsensically.
2) There is no emotional payoff of any kind. Someone is hurt, instantly healed. Someone seems dead, nah just a close shave. Some enemy seems insurmountable, nope they're defeated in a couple lines.
Because everything is "as it should be" or achieved easily, the "conflicts" which are presented don't feel like conflicts. It's jarring when a character jumps to the "right" conclusion without enough setup, it takes the reader out of the book. And it's boring when the book sets something up, but resolves it almost immediately.
And speaking of the plot, most of the choices the characters made for /how/ to resolve the central conflict, created completely avoidable secondary conflicts! The plot was full of holes where characters could have made wiser or more creative choices.
In summary, if the story doesn't feel smart or emotionally charged, then it's just... a story. And it's fine... But "fine" is not a good reason to pick up this book over any other of the millions of fantasy stories out there.

This book is beautiful, like if The Lightning Thief and Labyrinth had a baby. I love that this book is what a good story should be: inclusive without being ham-fisted. It's a story about learning to accept yourself, learning to trust others, and navigating family, all of which is universal.
PS - I love Whick, they are the BEST, I would read a whole comic about the misadventures of Whick the Golem!

Short Version: This book is overly ambitious, and fumbles its potential with a word salad of cliches.

Longer Version, Spoilers Below: I both pre-ordered this book and offered to review an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book because I love S. A. Fenech's work and want to support her as an artist. So, I'm sad to have to be honest: This book did not live up to my hopes.

I will start with the positives though; the lead, Everly, is endearing, realistic, and equal parts heartbreaking and heart-warming. Imagine "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but instead of bright and perky Buffy being the chosen one, it's shy and sullen Tara instead. Everly is empathetic, trusting, and generously kind, all while nursing the wounds of childhood trauma and living with anxiety. She often fails to see the best of herself, or blames herself for others' suffering. Despite that, Everly never fails to try and do right by people, which - in a world full of darkness both moral and supernatural -is a superpower in its own right.

However, every single secondary character exists to remind Everly that she is great. They have different names and physical appearances, but they might as well be interchangeable, since they share the same motivation and temperament. I honestly had a hard time reading this book because my brain would stumble to match a name to a character, and I would have to go back and reread passages, that was how flat they were. A group of friends (or acquaintances) doesn't agree all the time. I expected someone to question Everly from time to time. To ask if she was being irrational, or paranoid, or besotted, or even magically mislead.... Or to take umbrage with her self-deprecation and fear-induced-paralysis; not everyone is patient with empaths. The lack of interpersonal conflict in this book was noticeable and disappointing, it robbed potentially interesting characters of any depth.

Speaking of Everly's anxiety being a source of conflict... Her anxiety manifests, sometimes, in the form of lucid dreams. For years she has dreamt of her crush, Rylan. After one such dream, Everly wakes up in the middle of the night to see the real Rylan fighting a monster in her yard. The ENTIRE conflict of the book stems from this moment: Everly witnesses Rylan receive a severe injury before she wakes up again, to find herself outside but Rylan is missing... The obvious conflict would be if Everly couldn't tell dreams and reality apart, convinced herself that what she saw was a dream, but lives in an uncertain limbo for days before the magical truth bombs start falling. It would be an ongoing source of tension, never knowing if we could trust the viewpoint character, rather like the escalation of a horror movie. INSTEAD, Everly assumes for the first time ever that her super real-feeling dream was in fact reality this time, and now she needs to go on a quest to rescue Rylan's body, wherever it may be. As mentioned before, her friends and allies do not question her, and completely support Everly in poking randomly around town. At no point does Everly, or anyone else, give up the hunt for Rylan's body on the basis that "maybe my dreams are true" is a bad jumping off point for a detective. Seems like any one character should have had a Reality Check moment and questioned whether believing a dream was a sane idea.

And speaking of sanity checks... Everly takes in stride a LOT: the existence of a parallel world full of shapeshifters and monster ooze; her hometown being a hellmouth; monster zombie roadkill; the spooky monster assassin boarding school her crush attends; being covered in rats, repeatedly... This character was dealing with the deaths of her parents and the reconciliation of her trauma under their roof, and /that/ would have been enough of a story. This girl's crush goes mysteriously missing, and in a bizarre, gender-bent Sleeping Beauty sort of way, she's able to communicate with her love in dreams; she saves the day and /that/ would have been enough. There is a monster hunter academy, and /that/ would have been enough. Everything we think of as a gothic monster is actually the /same/ species of monster, and they have interbred with humans, and /that/ would have been enough. But this book tried to do ALL those plots and more, and after awhile too many threads did not make a sweater.

My final criticism is with the technical writing. I highlighted a lot of passages because they were simply awkward to read. As an example, a large, old home is described as looking like a slumped wedding cake. I don't know what comes to other people's minds, but the first wedding cake I think of is the three-tiered kind, with the circular cakes which get smaller and smaller the higher they stack. I have never seen a house that shape. Fine, perhaps my misunderstanding a metaphor is nitpicky. Better example, "The aroma was a mix of dry-dirt stale and warmly pungent." Pungent is an adjective, it describes something else. You can't structure a sentence as "It was a pungent." But with a change of punctuation, this sentence could be made to make sense: "The room had a dry-dirt aroma: stale and warmly pungent." The technical writing in this book needed an editor's eye, to tighten it up and make it smoother to read. But because the grammar was off, or the word choice was odd (Why would you name your evil castle full of racist, homicidal jocks, Darkfrey. DARK. FREY. Why not just call them The Vile Academy for Would-Be Magical Murderers and be done with it!) I spent more time playing Editor than Reader.

What was great about Everly was not enough to save what was lacking with the rest of the book.

This book is a MASTERPIECE!

This book is so much more than "a vampire book". There are many kinds of bloodsuckers out there: People who are demeaning, and sap your strength, leaving you soul-tired. People who prey upon your faith or hospitality, and expect more than you can give. Sharks who swindle money from you. Systemic racism leaving you tired of struggling for equality. /Sexism/ leaving you tired of struggling for equality! The crushing fear that you are not enough. There is so much more to a life than blood in your veins, and so much more that drains a person in a day than physical exertion. This. Author. NAILED IT! What it's like to be a mother, a housewife, a female friend - the fact that we live so much of our lives in our thoughts and feelings, but they are /valid/ and /real/ - this author crushed it.

A gorgeous fable about the monsters we become when we let anger rule, and the infectious peace we make when we dare to trust others. My heart goes out to anyone who, like Soraya, has suffered abuse, or has had to make themselves small when their feelings are big.
The back of this book is unique: Instead of a glossary of terms, there is more of a bibliography of inspirations. I loved it! I felt like I was sitting down for coffee and a chat with the author, it was so wonderful to see her thought process. Definitely got the Persian Sleeping Beauty vibes she was striving for.
This book gets major stars for being inclusive. Not just for the heroine being LGBTQA, but because the book explores themes of /romantic/ attraction: how a person can be attracted to a personality trait more than a physical trait.
AND this book gets big stars for its sensory descriptions! Having sense of touch become such a priveledged, intimate, even sometimes decadent, form of communication makes the audience /feel/ the story as it unfolds.
I can see how a reader might get upset with the extended metaphors which run throughout. But personally, as someone who also enjoys folk stories, the metaphors felt appropriate, like they were setting a fairytale tone. I can also see how readers might be upset that the author "borrowed" most of the characters from Persian myths, but since Fairytale Retellings are an entire sub-genre, I fully applaud the way they were rewoven in this book.
Fantastic read! Cannot wait to read more from this author :D. <3

Game of Thrones and Goblet of Fire adopted an African folktale, and the result is this flawless book! I had no idea how much my heart was aching for this story until I read it! I cry for my younger self, that she didn't have this book to read yet. It is everything I ever wanted: an enchanting, inclusive and deft tale of political intrigue, family drama, obstacles of racism/sexism/religious persecution/insert your -ism here, and overcoming one's own emotional demons. Strong female leads, vulnerable male leads, a story that twists and turns every time you think you have the answer, and the last 40 pages alone left me breathless. My only regret is that I have to wait another 8 months for the second book! I cannot wait for more from Roseanne A. Brown; the world desperately needed this author. Thank you for this book, thank you for being a literary superhero!