Tiana Smith

Meh. I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did. I think that I failed to really connect with the characters because everything was so ... scientific. The "magic" was explained using all sorts of very geeky garble. Usually I like geeky stuff, don't get me wrong. I consider myself smart. But asking for kids to understand this level of science was a bit much. I felt like things just happened to the characters, rather than the characters facing any emotional choices. Also, with how much both the main characters were beat up and bullied at the beginning of the novel, I found that I didn't really believe the parental figures in this book. I'm sorry, but if my kid was being beat up every day for months, you'd better bet that I'd do more about it than simply patch them up at the end of the day. I probably would have bought that before I became a mom, but now my parental instincts have kicked on and I didn't find that part of the story believable. Since that happened right at the beginning, I had a hard time really getting into the story.