A hilarious and absurd adventure.

I cannot wait for the full book! This sneak peek was full of danger, magic, and mystery grounded in the dirt of London. There are no hints of love triangles or sappy heroes/heroines, and the characters that have been introduced are flawed and brave and compelling. Schwab does a great job of establishing rules and building up the three alternate universe Londons.

This poorly written novel follows trouble-making Adam as he gets apprenticed to a shipping merchant and then proceeds to do everything possible to ruin his own life, his family's life, and the shipping merchant's life. The book is written at the reading level of fourth or fifth grade, but the subject material (the shipping merchant calmly explains why he is smuggling and why he is a good man and everyone is happy when he escapes arrest, there are constant references to his mother being a prostitute, Adam is kidnapped and left for dead on an island) is a little more mature, leaving me to wonder if Whitford is a simpleton or has no concept of her audience. This lackluster adventure was a failure through and through.

This book gets two stars because it had some pretty funny lines, but overall the punch lines were delivered weakly, the humor fell flat, Annie herself was so cringe-worthy that I wanted to punch her in the face, and the two love interests were both rude jerks.

This epistolary novel is written between a couple, Penelope and Sherwood, as he fails to be a military man and she fails to be a faithful partner. The tongue-in-cheek asides are laugh-out-loud funny, and the narrative is so outrageous and mischievous that one can't help but be delighted.

This series is everything I want from a dystopia: non-romantic male/female friendships, no love triangle, weird scifi explanation of the dystopia that makes sense if we thoroughly suspend both disbelief and science, special abilities, cool tech, and a believable romantic relationship between two equally strong characters. It's not perfect; some scenes drag on and the internal monologues can be a bit exasperating, but overall this is a solid and enjoyable dystopia. It manages to get even better in the second book, which is rare, and it kept up the pace and the tension, which is even rarer.

This dull "romance" (is it really a romance if the couple gets married at the end but never even kiss?) is short, and that's the nicest thing I can say about it. Saffron is so useless that when she goes to the store for apples, she manages to get drenched in mud and makes it all the way home without the apples. The love interest's only interesting quality is how disturbingly obsessed he is with keeping his three younger siblings safe in the house where nothing at all ever can happen to them. The characters were "developed" via other characters' explaining them to themselves ("Oh Saffron you're so clumsy" "Oh Adam you're so protective" "Oh Carol you're so sweet") and the entire plot was so insipid I need to brush my teeth before I get a cavity.