DNF @ 60%

I was captivated by the beginning. The setting of the lake, the banter between Jenny and Temp. Then once the quest started it all fell apart. It became extremely boring and draggedddd on. The dialogue lost its momentum and it seemed like this could have been a novella instead.

Received an arc via Netgalley, it did not affect my review, etc etc

This review covers my problems with this book, and convinces me that it’s not going to get better.

The beginning was great; Jenny is kind of adorable at first, and I really liked her voice (I despise first-person unless your POV character has something unique about their voice or perspective, and the non-human Jenny does, so woo!) But the moment Temperance appeared, things went downhill. The dialogue is awful, very clunky (who gives their life story to a stranger when introducing themselves?) and I found Temperance an incredibly boring character, whose personality is weirdly inconsistent. (One minute she’s running away, then she’s fighting back; she summons fireballs to defend herself then declares she doesn’t know any magic for defending herself: okay!!!)

The Big Bad was incredibly disappointing, and irked me in a few different ways – human pastors killed plenty of people for witchcraft in the real world, so making this one a not-human monster…he’s evil because look, he’s not human! Implying, what, that humans wouldn’t do this? Except plenty did (and do)? Having him be a monster is too simple (completely aside from him being cartoonish levels of over-the-top-no-really-this-is-embarrassing evil) and that – things being too simple – was a running problem. Temperance needs incredibly rare, powerful ingredients for a spell, and she and Jenny have them all a couple of pages later – everything’s too convenient, too easy, and the lore is so simple and basic that it’s boring. (Not the stuff about the Greenteeths, which was simple but in a great way; the lore about other fae, the villain, etc.)

I can see this being a fun, light read for someone who wants an easy, straightforward story. But I don’t think it’s very good objectively, and it definitely doesn’t live up to its premise. Jenny deserved better!