Summary from Goodreads:
Sometimes it’s not the kid you expect who falls through to
magicland, sometimes it’s . . . Elliot. He’s grumpy, nerdy, and appalled by
both the dearth of technology and the levels of fitness involved in swinging
swords around. He’s a little enchanted by the elves and mermaids. Despite his
aversion to war, work, and most people (human or otherwise) he finds that two
unlikely ideas, friendship and world peace, may actually be possible.
Review:
This book is everything! Seriously, it is everything I have
always wanted and needed in a book. It’s probably my favorite book of the year
and will go down as one of my all time favorite books. How do I know this
already? Well, I’ve already re-read my favorite moments! I finished it one day,
and within hours had to go back and re-read some parts again. It is sadly a
library book and I’m dreading the moment I have to return it. However, I’ve
decided that I must own a copy and will be purchasing it soon.
One of my biggest pet peeves in fantasy novels is how rough
women have it. Seriously, why do so many women get walked over, raped,
mistreated, and spit on in fantasy books? If it’s a fantasy story any way, why
can’t more women be placed higher in the hierarchy? This is something I’ve
asked myself every year, ever time I read a fantasy novel that I love. Yes,
there are some powerful ladies in fantasy lately. Thank goodness. But how about
some powerful ladies that don’t have to always prove themselves to men?
Thank you, Sarah Rees Brennan for making the elf characters
of this book. I absolutely never got tired of Serene commenting on the softness
of men. There’s even a moment when she interrupts a war scene to yell for men
to come to the rescue of a lost child because she expects men to have the
better ability to relate to the poor thing. I never got tired of this
commentary and every time it happened, I smiled. I knew I needed a book that
did something like this, but I guess I never knew how much I needed it: super freaking
badly.
The fantastic feminist aspect of the book is actually only
one of the many amazing elements that is this story. We also get a bisexual
main character! I love having a main character who loves both men and women. I
can’t honestly come up with another YA book that does this. Elliot falls in
love with characters not based soley on what they look like (or what gender
they are), but on what they believe and how many books they have in their
rooms.
Elliot is such a character. He can be pretty snotty, mean,
and awful at moments, but generally he is someone who can love all people and
creatures. He genuinely is a paficist who believes wars can be avoided through
treaties. And he sees the beauty in mermaids, harpies, and even trolls in a
society of humans who of course still have prejudice against those who are
different. Elliot was also born into such a terrible family. Watching him learn
to love and be loved was maybe half the appeal of this remarkable character. He
really does have to learn these things.
I also adored Luke. He was so used to being adored at every
turn, and then comes Elliot, the meanest of all sarcastic characters, who is
always pushing sweet Luke away. Their friendship to me was powerful. I loved
watching Elliot learn to love Luke. I thought all the competition and
jealousies between the trio made them more real. Nothing was ever truly easy
for any of them.
While this is a fantasy that takes place over various wars,
treaties, magic school years, and battles, it is mostly a character driven
book. It is not a book for people who need heavier plots in their fantasy. It
is a book for character lovers and world builders. This world is so magically
interesting and believable at the same time. The battles among the different
creatures seem like battles that can take place between different groups of
humans; they are about land mostly, and honor…
Brennan develops this whole sense of mythology to her world
where I was just as interested as Elliot to learn about it. I would read
another book in this world if she wrote one.
This is also a book that pokes fun at is own genre. It kind
of plays with the concept of what is expected in YA/Middle Grade fantasy and
flips it around. It plays with gender, sexuality, and romance. But it also
plays with the reader’s expectations of school, friendships, love triangles,
popularity, athleticism, etc. It pokes fun of chosen ones and boys who can see
the magical divide. It’s a book that both satirizes it’s genre and bends it
genre into something new and better.
I can probably go on and on about this book and dissect it
way past the point where anyone would keep reading my review. But, I’ll stop. I
love this book. I can’t wait for more people to read it. I give it a 10/10.
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