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Book Review
As a Guardian Violet protects humans from any faerie that may sneak into the human realm. And she is on track to graduate at the top of her Guardian class. But while guarding a boy named Nathan, she accidentally brings him back to Creepy Hollow when he grabs hold of her arm. Humans are not allowed in the Faerie Realm. And the faerie paths Violet uses to travel should kill a human. Expelled from school for breaking the law, Violet is tasked with bringing Nathan back to his world. She must also give him a forgetful potion. But her curiosity may get the better of her. This is the first human she’s interacted with. And her heart may have other ideas.
The beginning of this story was filled with action and world-building. Rachel Morgan brought to life the magical and colorful world of Creepy Hollow. The interactions between Violet and Nathan were comical as the two tried to understand their different customs and technology. Unfortunately, once I made it through the first part of the book, the rest seemed to fall to pieces.
After the events of Violet and Nathan, the reader is put into an average day for Violet. Training, dodging gossip, and dealing with school rivalry. At this point in the story, it slowed down the narrative. It felt like an attempt at a typical young adult school setting, but it just didn’t work. After all the magic and conflict, this section only dragged the story down. It should have been introduced earlier, to give readers a better foundation to stand on. Not to mention it never surfaces again.
There are abrupt chapter endings that left me confused. Listening to the audiobook, I thought it was skipping. I had to rewind to listen to the last few minutes and confirm that nothing was skipped, the chapter just suddenly ended. This pulled me straight out of the narrative.
The plot and subplots were not put together well. The reader is jolted between them, and at times I wasn’t exactly sure what the main plot was anymore. At one point, the main plot seems to end and then pick up another plot altogether. Characters that were in the background suddenly came to the front and become solid secondary characters with the new plot.
This is not a series I will be continuing. While I enjoyed Violet and Nathan, the plot jumped too much and by the end of the book, I had no idea what was going on.
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