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between

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Pages: 384

Point of View: First, Present tense (Like Hunger Games)

Source: NetGalley

Released: July 29th 2014

Predictability: 4 out of 5 (Where 1 is George RR Martin (If the characters make a plan or think about the future I know it isn’t going to go that way.) And 5 is Cinder (where I guessed what was going to happen long before it did, but it was still a great book.)

My Rating: 8/10 Stars

 

Don’t read the official summary! It details the entire novel and I’d rather go into a book blind.  (Read mine instead 😉

My Summary:

Charlie, (short for Charlotte) and Sam are celebrating their seventeenth birthday when they’re attacked by a monster. Their mom bravely puts herself in front of the monster, but this isn’t just a mom protecting her kids, she shows neither fear nor surprise. Then Seth, the older boy their mom adopted five years ago, shows up and throws their mom a knife telling her how to kill the monster. She injures the monster, but doesn’t kill it.

Their mom grabs Sam and disappear and Seth takes Charlie, explaining that they’ve flickered, teleported with magic. The next thing Charlie knows Seth’s guided her through a portal and into another world he calls the Between.

Charlie learns her mom and Seth work for an organization of magical creatures called the Fellowship. They guard the mystical realm and cover up sightings of magical creatures in our world. (All except Bigfoot: that attention whore is a total lost cause.) The Between is the magical land in between the two worlds created by Mother Nature herself.

My Review:

In the mystical realm live almost all of the creatures from fairy tales and legends; fairies, centaurs, trolls, leprechauns, unicorns, and others that are unique to this book. I thought that all of the ones we learned about were well done, traditional with enough unique to make them interesting.

Charlie is not your traditional high school girl. She’s witty and quirky and has big dreams of becoming an artist. Sam dreams of becoming a musician and all three of them (Charlie, Sam and their mom) have a great relationship. Seth’s parents died and he moved to town five years ago, their mom kind of adopted him after he came around looking for a lawn mowing job. Charlie thinks he’s too serious and too much of a rule follower, but still annoyingly cute.

The Good:

In one chapter I liked and cared about these characters, that’s all it took and I’m worried something will happen to one of them. We meet more characters in the mystical world and even those I don’t like were well developed and colorful. The characters have so many cute little quirks that make them real. I loved the humor, it really lightened the mood.

I can tell a lot of TLC went in to this book. I could accurately picture the world. Sometimes I’m bored by descriptions, but these were well done.

The world building was well developed, as was the history and the creatures / people. The magic was a bit basic, elemental powers, but how the magic was taught was unique.

The romance wasn’t love at first sight! It felt true to real life! There was another flirty guy who she found attractive and I was afraid of a love triangle, but they only became friends and neither had feelings for the other beyond that.

The plot was solid and without holes. The pacing at the beginning was good, but it slowed a little before the end. (The beginning of the book is easily ten stars.)

The ending was good, the story line wrapped up well, but not perfectly. This could be a standalone book, but there’s still a hint of things to come.

The Bad:

Charlie’s mom banned swearing, so she came up with pseudo words to use instead. At first this was cute, but it was a little over done, especially in her thoughts.

Every time Charlie disobeys and sneaks off bad thing happen. People are trying to kill you girl! Maybe you should listen and stay put.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. Will I read the Sequel? Yes, where is it!