Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

The Perfect Escape

By Suzanne Park.

This is a nice, sweet story with a fun premise and ah....some definite surprises.

Nate is an entrepreneurial lad from a family that's not doing too well financially, looking to make some big bucks. He works at an escape room, where he meets Kate and they hit it off in a friendly way pretty quickly. Both of them are into escape rooms and zombies and could use some cash, so they team up to enter a weekend survivalist competition together.

Nate's family situation is fairly normal--dad just lost his job, he has a little sister who keeps being a 5-year-old, he's got a pointless crush on a female friend that obviously I'm not really concerned about given that Kate exists. There's a wee bit of mystery regarding not knowing too much about his family members when anyone's assigned to do a family tree in school, but that's eventually explained. 

However, Kate's in a bad way. Her mom died and her father's a big time tech entrepreneur who, after her mother's death, is basically tech-stalking, drone-stalking, helicopter parenting her to the point where it sure does seem like she's in jail. I note that she has recently turned 18 but still in school, but her dad sure acts like she has no choice in doing what he says. The amount of nitpicking and stalking he does... He nitpicks every penny she spends (72 cents over budget!), every phone call she makes or gets, going over allotted Internet usage by 14 minutes, there's a house robot to take her vital signs... It's incredibly creepy. Nate actually admires her dad, not having any idea that it's her dad. He's got a cardboard popup of the guy, and imagine poor Kate's reaction upon seeing that! (I note that Kate's last name is a generic one, so it's not totally obvious that they might be related.) 

I do seriously wonder if this book is a bit ahead of us in time/in the future from the technology used in it? It feels about fifteen minutes into the future, for various reasons.  

Overall, at least until we get to the point of the competition, it's a sweet friends-to-something-more relationship between Nate and Kate, who are nice people. They have awkward moments ("I left my wig in his car!" "I feel forced to eat a burger I don't want to eat!") but get over it. There's a bit brought up about how Nate's a scholarship student at a snooty school and someone's trying to get him to commit grade fraud, but it doesn't get as much play as you might think.

And then comes the competition... This goes into straight up spoiler territory so I'll have to address it in detail in the spoiler cut below. What I will say above the cut is that I was suddenly very surprised and things go from fairly normal world (other than Daddy Techstalker) to HOO BOY I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS territory. I felt like I was suddenly reading a Jennifer Lynn Barnes book, THAT kind of levels of twists. It didn't match the previous tone of the book, so it was a huge surprise. Like "conspiracy theories are real!" level of it. I'm not saying that makes it bad, but I definitely didn't expect the book to hit that level of craycray. Like Kate's life, I can see some level of craziness happening given what her dad is like, but to have it end up all over Nate? Dang. 

Overall, it's a very good book, but it definitely takes A Jump and escalates in ways I was not expecting. I also kind of wonder how things resolve with Kate's dad, but again, that's spoiler cut territory. I'm giving it three and a half stars. If you want to know why, check the spoiler cut.

The Queen Will Betray You

By Sarah Henning.

Previous book here. 

Well, this is a dizzying book! Our big romance of Ama and Luca are kept apart for almost all of the book (sigh), as he and his team go to confront the Warlord and Ama ends up dealing with her betraying family/supposed allies in her own kingdom locking her up. The one ally she has...of sorts....is Prince Tallifer, who continues to be interesting/confusing/ambiguously evil and what do I make of him? Heck if I know.

There's a ton of female scheming in this one. We're told that one male ruler's been scheming to plant people throughout the other kingdoms who will commit murders and then take over, but then his supposed people turn on him to. Dowager Queen Ines in particular has a spectacular wedding that will definitely remind you of another famous one, let's put it that way. There's also a lot of Warlord issues, as we find out that it's kinda ah. Dread Pirate Roberts-y when it comes to that job. I admit that I enjoy seeing what this author's doing with the various tropes (especially the one that reminded me of The Three Amigos/Spartacus and other similar moments). More like "all queens will betray you" in this one, so watch out! 

We do find out more about the deceased King Sendoa's choices in the past and why he did what he did--how he always has a plan, but when other people go awry about it....

Anyway, it was an interesting read and I enjoyed all the double-crossing and whatnot. I don't know how emotionally engaged I am with any of it, though? (Which is to say, our lovebirds are still separate and hell, they spend more time with others.) I guess I'm giving it 3.5 stars overall.

Under the Never Sky

By Veronica Rossi.

I picked this up out of a Little Free Library. Then the next day, I went out to go meet up with a friend I haven't seen much since pandemic started. At the last minute I remembered "oh yeah, she runs hella late, better grab a book," which I did, and it was this one. Then friend proceeded to be an hour late, so I started reading this book. And I was utterly confused at the start of the book and wished I'd grabbed another one, and thought, "if I'd bothered to thumb through this at the Little Free Library, I would have put it back." But since I had nothing else to do, I kept going. And it got better, though I think I'm probably still lost on some points.

My approximation of understanding of the background of this: it's an apocalypse world, and some folks are living underground(?) in pods(?) with a lot of virtual reality and genetic engineering and whatnot going on. And some other folks are still living on the apocalypse-y surface, in tribes in the wilderness, where some folks have evolved super-senses--super hearing, super sight, smelling people's emotions (temper), etc. I admit this is what I found confusing and I could have used some Basil Exposition to explain what was going on to me. It's one of those books where Things are Named and Mentioned in Capital Letters a lot like you know what they're referring to.

The book jointly features Aria, one of the pod dwelling/virtual reality dwellers, whose scientist mom Lumina has gone to another pod(?). While her mother's gone, Aria gets into some kind of weird trouble in which some of her friends end up dead and a powerful guy ends up kicking her out of the pod into the real world. While out there, she meets Peregrine, an Outsider from a tribe whose nephew, Talon, has been abducted by the pod people. Perry is a taciturn guy with super sight and super smell (a rare combo). I'll note that Aria's mom seems to have genetically engineered her to be a singer, as well. And her mother left her a message she never got to read before getting kicked out. So the two team up together to try to find her mother/his nephew, more or less, meet some enemies and friends, and meet some former pod people who are helping out the locals in a lovely place.

Look, the plot kinda confused me, all right? But I rather liked Aria, and even Perry after awhile once he starts to get less stoic. (Of course, it's a romance.) Some of the concepts are interesting, if confusing, to me. Lumina turns out to have been studying Outsiders because they haven't had the mental degeneration of poddwellers, and the revelations related to that are intriguing. But also....like I said, coulda used more exposition, please. 

So, it has good potential, but I was somewhat lost reading it. Maybe others don't have that problem though? I'm giving it three stars. 

Love, Jacaranda

By Alex Flinn.

This is a modern-day retelling of "Daddy Long Legs," which I really enjoyed. It covers about a year and the characters are teenagers, but there's some definite callbacks/quotes from the original that I enjoyed.

Jacaranda Abbott is from Florida and she's in foster care--she never had her dad around and her mother was the sort who had a bunch of bad boyfriends and ended up killing hers to save her and Jacaranda's lives. Now her mom's in jail for a long, long time and Jacaranda's working in Publix. When she gets asked to sing by a customer, someone films it, it goes viral, and an anonymous benefactor, on the strength of that impertinent video, offers her a full ride scholarship to a music/theater/performing school in Michigan.*

* Michigan?! Not that I know anything about the Midwest, but that's a major theater hub to get young stars?

She never sees/meets her benefactor, but she is given an email address for him at dll.com and is told to write periodically as to how she's doing. She also works with his lovely uh, assistant, I guess, Vanessa, who she clearly really likes and Vanessa takes care of her very well. I really enjoyed reading about theater school and wished I could have gone to one myself. That place sounds really great, and clearly Jacaranda has promise in a future career :) 

Anyway, Jacaranda goes, changes her name to "Jackie" so she's not "that girl from the Internet" and makes friends with the easygoing Daisy and the prickly, nervous Phoebe. Phoebe is harder to befriend, but they make it work and it's very sweet as time goes on. She also meets Phoebe's hot, rich, super nice cousin Jarvis and they fall in instalove. (Description of Jarvis: "This guy has millions of dollars, and he eats cheap meat loaf and asks about the waitress's kid's braces.") But Jacaranda's keeping her less-than-posh upbringing a secret from everyone there since it's a rich crowd, and she has definite insecurities about being a foster kid with her mom in jail compared to the Pendleton family.*

• I don't believe Jacaranda's ethnicity is ever specified here, but I assumed she was a person of color. She's not described in the book, though there is one point where she and Phoebe claim to be related to Jarvis, not sure if that implies otherwise? But if that's true, it works.

She also ends up with a rival, Brooke, who gets pissed as heck that the new girl gets better parts. To which Jacaranda says "And after all those extra classes and lessons, you aren't better than someone who just walked in off the street." BURN! Having a jealous rival eventually leads to people finding out things, and Jacaranda finding out what's really going on with certain people. 

Overall I really enjoyed this. For the Daddy Long Legs fans, I'll discuss more about how this compares to the book below the spoiler cut. But both on that level and in its own right, this is a super sweet story and adorable and gives you the warm fuzzies. Four stars! 

Admisision

By Julie Buxbaum.

"I think: Maybe there are some things I don't need to know." -Chloe

This is clearly inspired/a fictional retelling of the college admissions scandal, particularly in its similarity to Lori Loughlin and her behavior. (The author says in the back that it's fiction, but, y'know, I'm sure real life was inspiring too.) It does remind me of reading If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say in that it's from the villain's point of view. 

In this case, our narrator Chloe wasn't an influencer who didn't really care about college. She was just....dumb, somehow. Not great at school, not outstanding in looks or personality other than being a nice person, not really driven with goals, just kind of...there and doesn't have much to say about herself in a college admissions essay.. She cares about getting together with her longtime friend Luke, she cares about her best friend Shola and she's trying to get into college. She's well meaning but casually oblivious at times to her privilege when compared to Shola, an immigrant of color on scholarship. Everyone else around her is shooting for Harvard, but Chloe's been told by her college counselor that virtually every school her parents approve of would be a stretch at best. So her parents get her one of those fancy college counselors....

One day she opens her door while wearing SCC college merch and here's well, everybody for her mom. Her mom is a B list TV star lady who is in big denial about the whole thing and as everyone tells her she's going to jail, huddles farther and farther into ice cream containers and Xanax. Her dad only missed prosecution by not being on a certain phone call that day, and the law is vaguely hinting at going after Chloe even though she's 17 (the fuck?) She's got a half brother who's a drug addict too. Only her little sister Isla, the wise-beyond-her-years family genius, is keeping her head together.

The book goes back and forth between "now" and "then." In "now," everyone's lives are ruined, Chloe never goes back to school, she loses her boyfriend and her best friend, and she's literally not allowed to talk to anyone, though there is a secret Signal chat going on between the other kids in the scandal. In "then" Chloe retraces her life and all the moments where something seemed to go overly well and then when she thought about it or wondered or objected, someone else explained it or blew it off. When she knows she did terribly on the SAT's even with an ADHD diagnosis and extra time and only one guy "proctoring" her, and she somehow has over 200 more points, everyone else is so pleased--even the school counselor--wouldn't you feel like you should go along with it? The College Board doesn't mix up scores, after all. Did anyone else have to have their picture taken in a certain way for their applications? And what essay does "Dr. Wilson" seem to think she submitted, anyway? In the end, you feel for poor Shola when Chloe somehow gets into SCC and Shola only makes the waitlist--you feel her anger and frustration and she is certainly right.

If there's any issues I have with the book, it's that Chloe is such a....blob, in a sense? She's a very average person who just happens to have a rich-ish and famous mom. She wasn't actively involved but kind of passively went along with things, in a vague sorta-aware-sorta-not haze. You totally get why her parents did what they did. She's a thoughtful narrator, especially in retrospect, but it's a bit hard to be interested in someone who's just not an outstanding personality, not particularly goal-oriented other than wanting to date, and just drifts along through life wondering how she continues to be so dumb.. (By the end I got a little annoyed when she said something along the lines of "Who knew how much it helps to do all the reading?" Like, that was IT?!) But at the same time I'd rather read about this situation from someone who wasn't utterly complicit or avaricious, so it's a hard balance to write someone who isn't, but is just kind of wandering down the primrose path, as it were. 

In the end, Chloe realizes that she's a villain. They all are, really. Even if she's technically innocent of the crime--she only pieced things together once it was too late and then the next day the cops came--she took away other people's hopes and dreams and there's no way to make yourself not look horrible after that. Chloe and her mother have to realize that they need to accept their punishments, do the time (in the case of her mom) and suffer the consequences. In the end, her mother accepts the inevitable and Chloe herself starts from the lowest difficulty level of building another life.

Four stars. Really affecting to read. This LA Times interview with the author is a good read.

Quote:

"You'll put this behind you and maybe even be a stronger, better person for the experience. You'll go on to live a long and authentically good life. You'll end up more empathetic and ultimately have a fuller understanding of your own privilege not in spite of this mess, but because of it. That's what I mean by fine." -Mrs. Oh. 

The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily

By Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

 

Previous book here.

 

It's one year later, and Dash and Lily have been together this entire time, but most of the year has been rough for Lily since her grandpa became ill. She's not feeling things so much, and the one time she said "I love you" to Dash, he didn't say it back. (My guess is that Dash didn't exactly realize since he has no mention of it in his chapters.) Anyway, she's kinda pondering breaking up. Dash, on the other hand, is actually teaming up with Lily's brother to try to perk her up for Christmas, as she hasn't been in the spirit. He and his bestie Boomer get her a Christmas tree. Lily throws a tree lighting party and accidentally invites both of Dash's parents at the same time, the parents have a little fire incident, Dash puts it out but ends up destroying the sweater Lily decorated and gave him...oops.

 

I did, however, approve of Mrs. Basil E's expert handling of Dash's awful dad: "I've often found it helpful to have a shovel around when you're dealing with a rake," and "Why don't you sit down next to me? As little as I expect I'll enjoy your company, it will gratify me greatly to see you out of the way. Lily takes these celebrations very seriously, and in my estimation, you are currently the person in the room with the highest likelihood of ruining this one. Let's make sure it doesn't happen." (Doesn't work, but she tried!) 

 

In addition to feeling overwhelmed/depressed/bummed about her grandfather in the last year, I really found myself relating to Lily's angst regarding her feelings for Dash presumably being more than he feels for her. "Since the moment passed unreciprocated, I've tried to have a little more distance from Dash. I can't make him feel something he doesn't feel, and I don't want to get hurt trying, so I decided to let my love for him simmer on the back burner of my heart, to allow me to be more casual and undemanding of him up front." Lily's mom gives some good advice when she says she wishes Dash would just know what to do without being told, and her mom says, "It's not natural to their species, and you should find it highly suspicious if he does," and it's up to her to tell him and not wait for him to tell her something he has no idea she's waiting to hear. "Are you going to be someone who takes charge of her feelings and her actions, even if the outcome might hurt, or someone who lets herself be unhappy simply because she won't ask for what she wants?" Hah, I am totally the latter myself. But it was good in the book. 

 

There's drama about Lily's family again--the Fiji job was quit when her grandfather became ill, but now her dad's working in Connecticut and considering moving there.  This isn't as urgent as the last time since it's more like "just go live at Mrs. Basil E's if you want to," though considering what to do with her grandfather is a sad issue too. Anyway, Lily starts openly circling the drain about breaking up, leading Dash to engineer yet another scavenger-hunt-ish adventure with her family to make it all better and for the reader to go "aww, I wish this was a thing someone could do IRL!" 

 

I continue to be amused at the author's brainstorming of movies--this one features "Corgi and Bess," about Queen Elizabeth and her animatronic corgi. There's also a mention of "The Naughty and the Mice," a supposed Pixar movie about attic mice drag racing Matchbox cars at night.

 

There's also some random craziness, like a gingerbread orgy (see below) and Dash and Edgar literally doing a pistol duel...water pistol duel at an old folks home, and a horrible skating accident brought on by Lily throwing glitter.  

 

Overall, I really enjoyed this, particularly the bits about Dash and Lily's love for each other, they really hit me emotionally. I wasn't too happy about Lily considering breaking up, but they make it work. I do kind of think that the book dragged on a little past the denouement, as it were, but overall it's a fun experience to read. Four stars. 

 

Quotes:

• "Who else but Dash would delight in a Christmas decoration displaying the face of a celebrated literary serial killer and give it to his girlfriend as a present? The present only made me adore Dash more." -Lily
• At one point, Lily somehow gets a job for the day as a gingerbread decorator and is shown X-rated gingerbread men in the back. "They even have their own orgy den!" Later, "So where were you, really?" "At a gingerbread house-making orgy." 
• "Boys never say what you want them to. It's probably the only lesson I've learned in life." -Lily. TRUE, GIRL.
• "Here's the thing about love. You get a last chance. And then, when that doesn't work, you make yourself another last chance. Then another. Then another. You keep going until your last chances run out." -Mrs. Basil E. 
• Dash explaining Santa Claus to a kid is great, and something to keep in mind if I ever end up being asked by a kid. "It doesn't matter whether I actually live at the North Pole or whether I'm the one who brings you presents every Christmas Eve. People like Tanner are going to tell you I'm pretend, and then when you get older, people like Tanner are going to tell you other things are pretend. But you know what to say to that? So what. That's what you tell them. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether the story's true or not. What matters is the care that's been put into the story. The love. If something is pretend, that usually means someone has taken the time to build a story for you to live in. And building stories takes a lot of work. And yes, there will come a time when you'll see the story isn't true. But the intentions behind it? Completely true. The love behind it? Also true." 
• Dash then has a beautiful speech to Lily about how we need to know where home base is, and that he loves her, and he wishes he could fix it all for her, and how he wants to come up with a story where everything is happy. "There is a messed-up kind of beauty in the way we can all bend over backward to make life seem magical when we want to. In other words, after giving it some thought, I think that reality has the distinct potential to completely suck, and the way to get around that is to step out of reality from time to time and find something a little more enjoyable with someone you completely, unadulteratedly enjoy. In my life, that's you." 

Also, the full quotes from Lily's mom::

 

"First of all, it's not fair to expect Dash to be psychic about what you really want from him. Second, and this is just a broader piece of advice for you about anyone you might date, but any male who automatically knows how to tick off all the items on your female wish-fulfillment list is too good to be true. It's not natural to their species, and you should find it highly suspicious if he does. Third, if you feel so strongly about him, I think it's your responsibility to be honest with him about it and not wait for him to tell you something he has no idea you're waiting to hear."

"But what if Dash doesn't feel the same way?"
"That's a risk you have to take. This is one of those moments when you get to decide who you want to be. It's like an awkward, uncomfortable growth spurt, but one that ultimately moves you in a definite direction. Are you going to be someone who takes charge of her feelings and her actions, even if the outcome might hurt, or someone who lets herself be unhappy simply because she won't ask for what she wants?"

 

"I'm talking about emotional intimacy, not physical. Acknowledging how you really feel, who you really are. Opening up your soul to another person. There's nothing scarier."  

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares

By Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

I got obsessed with watching Dash and Lily on Netflix and finally got the book. I'm not sure how good of a review I can write of it since my brain kept going back and forth between what book did vs. what movie did. Ah well...

Anyway, the title characters are two NYC teenagers chillin' without too many family members about during the Christmas season. Dash's brutally-divorced parents aren't aware that he's managing to spend the holidays alone. Lily's parents are off in Fiji, leaving her with her brother. She and her brother (and her cousin working at The Strand bookstore is also involved) come up with an interesting way for her to meet a book nerd guy by planting a notebook and some dares/activities/scavenger-hunt-y things at the store. Dash is the one that finds them and the two eschew phones and the like to pass a notebook of their thoughts and possible activities to do back and forth for awhile between finally meeting. Fun incidents like clubbing, Lily's aunt "Mrs. Basil E", Dash's friend Boomer getting involved, Lily making an ugly puppet, Dash being sent to sit on Santa's lap, etc. ensues. There's a bit of stuff involving Dash's foreign ex returning but not in a particularly romantic way. There's a running gag about a Pixar movie about office supplies finding love that still greatly amuses me.  There's also a ah, cliffhanger of sorts involving Lily's family as to whether or not they'll be staying in NYC.

Eventually Dash and Lily meet and hang out, and there's An Incident in which Lily saves a baby and somehow they get arrested and become media stars? (Definitely different from the movie.) I admit this kind of crazy surprised me, but ah well.

Overall it's cute and sweet and fun and something you wish you could do in real life with anybody (even though I confess I think the show made it even more fun for me). These authors do good fun pairing books. Dash is more cynical after the shit he's been through, Lily is more emotional (trying to live down a nickname of "Shrilly" from childhood). By the end, they're bonding at a bookstore, together this time. It's all very cute. Four stars. 

How They Met, And Other Stories

By David Levithan.

Book of short stories about love, mostly of the teenage variety, some straight and some gay. The author said he started writing love stories during physics class in high school and then handed out stories for Valentine's Day. He's left them the way the earliest were written in high school.

"I am here because of a piano, a Jeep, Hunter College, the U.S. Army, the Beatles, and a whole bunch of matchmakers. I am here because of letters written during a war, music played with windows open, a crazy leap. And love. I am here because of love."

• Starbucks Boy: guy gets matchmade with a guy at Starbucks by his babysitting charge, cute.
• Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat: interesting use of the "Miss Lucy" rhyme that every girl for decades knows, mixed in with poor Lucy only getting to secretly date girls who won't go public with her. 
• The Alumni Interview: how awkward is it when your alumni interview for college is with your secret boyfriend's dad?
• The Good Witch: Closeted gay guy casually asks a casual friend to the prom, turns out she's REALLY into him romantically, awkwardness ensues. 
• The Escalator, A Love Story: I don't write poetry much, though when I tried, my writing group told me what I wrote was "proetry." This story is proetry. 
• The Number of People Who Meet On Airplanes: My favorite of the stories and what felt like the most well done: a story about a couple who met on an airplane who find out later that they were matchmade by a guy at the airport. Awwww! 
• Andrew Chang: a strange one about getting fixed up with the son of dad's business associate, which turns out to be a prom date, and then she meets the love of her life at that boring guy's prom.
• Flirting With Waiters: an 8th grader has a crush on a high school senior and is always going to his pizza joint to see him. They form somewhat of a friendship (if nothing more) during his last year in town. Sad and sweet.
• Lost Sometimes: another story about secret gay loving at the prom with a guy you know it's not going to last with.
• Princes: 17-year-old dancer boy has a crush on a 22-year-old, makes the mistake of claiming this guy is his new boyfriend and he wants to bring him as a date to his brother's bar mitzvah. Then the little brother heroically is on his side on this when the family says no...and even though the 22-year-old smartly won't go there, it looks like there's another guy in the wings.
• Breaking and Entering: dude breaks into his ex's house after the ex has moved on toe college, runs into his mother. Not terrifying, just sad.
• Skipping the Prom: a couple who knows they won't last forever has one last night.
• A Romantic Inclination: two scientifically-minded people briefly debate getting together, then don't. 
• What A Song Can Do: even more proetry, I'm not really sure what happened with this couple, inexplicable breakup?
• Without Saying: Honestly, the way this was written confused me and I'm not sure what was going on here. Switches between second and third person.
• How They Met: talking about how his grandparents met during the war, they knew, and they got married soon. "But the moral of the story is that it worked. They knew, and they were right." 
• Memory Dance: the one story about an old couple together for decades, quietly at home.
• Intersection: almost proetry but not quite, about accidents of love. 

Overall, three and a half stars. 

 

Sorcery of Thorns

By Margaret Rogerson.

I wasn't as into this one as I was her previous book, but I did like it. 

Elisabeth Scrivener is a mystery orphan* raised at one of the Great Libraries--libraries in this world being places where the books may eat you. She's lived there all her life, loves it, and at age 16, is an apprentice and is looking forward to becoming a Warden someday. And then the director gets murdered, Elisabeth has to kill one of the attack grimoires, and she gets suspected of the crime of murder. While that blows over "relatively" easily, she finds out something even more sinister is going on, and the only person that believes her is Nathaniel Thorn, an 18-year-old orphan sorcerer and the last from a great house that scares the shit out of everybody. Nathaniel also has a demon servant, Silas, who perennially works for the family. Those two are the only ones that will help her, along with her bestie Katrien, who's still at the Library and on her side from a distance.

* See spoiler space for more thoughts on this.

That's the general plotline, I definitely feel like there were some plot details I was missing periodically though. Basically, bad guy has evil scheme involving taking down libraries and fucking with demons, and he's so popular and kind and rich that nobody buys it--and of course at one point he gets Elisabeth thrown in a loony bin. Happily, she escapes. This book doesn't have that many characters in it, but I did really like Mercy and Parsifal, minor characters that crop up here and there and are on her side. 

Mostly this book is about the trio of Elisabeth, Nathaniel, and Silas. Elisabeth is plucky and determined and not at all fazed by general weirdness since she grew up where the books try to eat your fingers (there is definitely some snark about that). Nathaniel has a tragic backstory of losing the rest of his family at age 12 and binding Silas to him so that he still had someone in his life. And Silas may be a demon, but he's unfailingly kind to them both and so obviously a being of Good Heart despite his origins, that they make a lovely little family that take care of each other. It's all very sweet and my favorite thing about the book. I heart Silas most of all, I think everybody does. 

But plotwise I was a bit muddled--maybe others might not have that problem, I'm not sure-- at times. And there's definitely a huge missed opportunity in the story that bugged me. And it feels a bit insular to be only focused on those three at times--their world seems kind of small-ish., even though people move in and out of the plot so maybe that's just my impression. But overall, those things didn't bother me enough to really dock the star rating. Four stars.

American Royals II: Majesty

By Katharine McGee.

Previous book here. I'll have to take the review below the spoiler cut. Four stars, though.