heyheyheather

Ugh I don't even know how I feel about this book. 

Going into this book I wasn't sure I was going to like it. And to be honest I didn't even really get into it until after chapter ten. 

I was so happy this book delivered. There wasn't any ridiculous insta-love or crazy love triangles going on, at least not a hardcore love triangle. I really liked Clara, she was not at all like most YA protagonists. She was, for the most part, smart and level headed. I enjoyed the romance between her and Tucker. It felt very believable and real to me, which is rare for the YA genre (in my opinion). 

I thought the story of the fallen angels was a good one and I hope we get to see more of that in the second book. The idea that they feed off of the "good" angels is creepy. 

I LOVED Angela! I hope we get to learn more about her in the next book as well. I wasn't that surprised when she turned out to be part angel, but I welcomed it and I thought it was nice for Clara to have a good friend that was part angel as well. Claras relationship with her mother felt very real and believable as well. And like Angela, I hope we get to learn more about her as well.

I don't know how I feel about Christian being part angel too. I will say that the interest/"love" or whatever you want to call it between him and Clara felt really forced to me. I honestly hope Clara and Tucker stay together in the series, they just feel completely right for each other. 

For a book about angels this didn't come off as preachy or anything, which I really appreciated. All in all I really enjoyed this one and I will definitely be continuing with the series. 

"What do you think this is, eighteen thirty-two? When you like someone and they like you, you fucking put your lips against their lips and then you open your mouth a little, and then just a little hint of tongue to spice things up. I mean, God, Grayson. Everybody's always got their panties in a twist about how the youth of America are debaucherous, sex-crazed maniacs passing out handouts like lollipops, and you can't even kiss a girl who definitely likes you?"

* There be spoilers ahead! *

This book was extremely disappointing! The author had this awesome idea of an oppressed Oz with an evil Dorothy, and she literally turned it into pages and pages of nothing. 

It feels like stuff is happening but after thinking back on it nothing of interest happened. It started off pretty strong. I already read the prequel novella so I was really excited to get this book started. I liked Amy's voice and I sympathized with her shitty situation. I was enjoying it all the way up to the part where she gets locked up in the palace. After that it all went down hill. I feel like 200 or so pages could have been cut out.

You would think seeing Amy taken in by a bunch of wicked witches and being trained by them would be cool, right? Wrong! We don't get that much information about the witches and they don't really tell Amy shit either! Instead we're just left with pages and pages of commentary of Amy trying and failing at magic. Then of course something happens and she's all of a sudden great at it. *eyeroll*

At this point I'm really bored and just hoping for something cool or interesting to poke it's head out. Oh, what's this? The Order is sending Amy on an undercover mission at the palace? Awesome! Expect........it's not.

Once again pages and pages just doing her cleaning duties as a maid. Oh, wait throw in her breaking into the scarecrows lab and freeing a monkey. That's it. The only interesting thing that happened. 

It finally did sort of pick up once Amy goes to actually kill Dorothy. But at this point I was bored with this book that I couldn't even really get excited. I was jaded so much by this book that I couldn't even get excited when Pete turned out to be Ozma.

I will still read the next book in the series. I'm hoping that it will pick up and finally get exciting. Because this series could be so exciting! There's so much Paige (or whoever is really writing it) could do with these ideas, I just hope they pan out and don't get bogged down by unnecessary bullshit.

My final rating was a 3 out 5. I was going to give it a 2.5 but even though Indigo wasn't in the book very long I thought she was great. I also liked Gert but she also died too early. As a matter of fact, I think Indigo, Gert and Jellia could have been really great characters but of course they all had to be killed off to show how horrible Dorothy and this new Oz is.

I'm hoping in the next book we'll get to see more of Ozma, the Scarecrow the Wizard. I want to know exactly why Dorothy's friends went bad too. You would think at least one of them would have some sense. Then again...