Tiana Smith

I really, really enjoyed the first half of the book. Everything was on the brink of disaster, and the author does a great job of making the reader think "how will the main character ever set things to rights?" I was so impressed with the first half that I probably would have given it 4 or 5 stars. But then ...Then things started wrapping up too nicely and neatly for me. It was like the main character (Jena) didn't really have to do anything at all, because other people were doing it for her. I really dislike books where they set up a strong female protagonist only to have the knight in shining armor save the day. That's kind of what I felt like happened here - Once Costi is revealed to be alive and in love with Jena, he's able to get rid of Cesar and all his problems practically overnight. Poof! Their money troubles are gone! Poof! The dancing glade will be safe! Poof! Jena doesn't have to worry about marrying some horrible human man only to be forced into raising children so they can have an heir!.Jena still does have to work things out with Tati, but even then, there is someone else there who is pulling the strings to make sure it all ends up okay. I guess my main beef with the story is that it's set up beautifully only to have a main character who makes no lasting impact herself. She is acted upon, not really acting of herself. I would have liked it a lot more if Jena had been the one to get rid of Cesar and save the wildwood.With that said: I loved the writing. Stylistically, it was very poetic and made me feel like I was really in that world. The author also does a great job with Cesar's description. You really begin to loathe that guy, but his motives seem perfectly right to him. I wasn't ever really *surprised* by this book, since the plot seems to go along just the way you would think it would - we all knew that the frog was going to be the "frog prince", right? I mean, come on, I was just waiting for her to kiss him.All in all, it was an enjoyable read, I just didn't like the ending much. And to me, the endings are almost more important than the entire rest of the book. It's still a "feel good" book that is a fun read.