First of all, full disclosure: I did not finish this book. I could not finish this book. The reason that I could not finish this book was that it was so mediocre at every level: The individual sentence-level writing was clumsy and pedestrian; the characterization was, I *think* going for #relatablecontent, but instead slipped into something that felt like a cliche of itself. The progression of events through scenes either repeated material that did not need to be repeated, or else introduced elements out of nowhere and never explained them. People make utterly bizarre remarks that are clearly an attempt to introduce exposition, but fail dismally at being believable in the context of the book. I can't comment on whether the broad plot structure worked, because I did not finish the book, but there's nothing about the set-up that is at all surprising or novel, so I have no doubt that I can guess how it ends, and care so little about it that I can't make myself slog through to see if I'm right.

Let us consider each one of these problems in turn.

First: The sentence-level writing. It wasn't bad or anything, but it was awkward. For example: "Cassia held on to the reins and Lucas reached around her. "Hold on, they go pretty fast."' Leaving aside the fact that reins are not grab-handles--no, not even when you're riding a wolf instead of a horse!--she's *already* holding on. We were told that she held on in the immediately preceding sentence--with the very same phrasal verb, no less. Sure, it's not outside the realms of possibility that someone might tell you to do something that you're already doing, but it's irritating and frustrating in real life, because it indicates that the speaker is either unobservant or else some kind of condescending mansplaining asshole. But Lucas isn't either of those things--or isn't supposed to be, which makes it all the more exasperating when he fails to read the previous sentence before he speaks.

Next: Characterization. Our heroine, Cassia, is a med student, and her beloved little sister is sick with some strange disease. Cassia is very studious and very fond of her sister. We learn this because her sister complains about her math homework, and Cassia offers to help her with it. And we get this:

"Stop showing off that you're good at math," Calla joked and groaned loudly. "I hate this. I'm never going to use it."
"Math is extremely useful," Cassia said as she picked up the thin notebooks and shoved them into the superhero-themed backpack."

What, exactly, do we learn in this conversation? That Calla doesn't like math? That Cassia is good at it? I didn't finish the book, but I'm pretty sure the 'importance of math' theme is not going to come back. The whole conversation doesn't feel real; it feels like a placeholder conversation that is intended to represent 'I am eleven and struggle with eleven-year-old frustrations' and 'I care about your education and I am a smart person'. Except the placeholder is never replaced with actual characterization, and we're left with details--such as they are--that are so generic that they don't add any depth. 

Likewise, another time Cassia is studying from a textbook, using a highlighter to highlight important bits, except 'at the rate she was going, the entire textbook would be highlighted in shades of yellow and green and it would be easier to identify the sentences that weren't highlighted.' Leaving aside the fact that this is not a terribly good study skill, we learned in the previous chapter that she has an eidetic/videographic memory. Why is she still highlighting textbooks? If her memory is that good, she shouldn't need it. It's as if the plot-relevant characterization (eidetic memory) is ignored because the author wants to cram some #relatablecontent into the book, because who hasn't overhighlighted a textbook, amirite?

All of the characterizations feel like this: I can tell exactly when details are supposed to be #relatablecontent, because they add nothing to the book and feel generic and pointless, and don't fit with the details are going to be plot relevant (eidetic memory).

Next: organization of information in events: Cassia is kidnapped into an alternative world through a portal and meets her long-lost childhood best friend Lucas there. And what is the first thing he tells her when she asks what's going on? 'We're in another realm. It runs on the same timeline as your world, so we're still the same age, kind of. Physically, I'd start aging slower at some point.'

WTF? Why do aging and timelines matter? If I were Cassia, I'd want to know, oh, let's say, how I got there, how I can get back, who is this asshole who kidnapped me, am I in danger, why did he kidnap me, how did you get here, why have you never come home, and that's just off the top of my head. Nowhere in that list of things I want to know does 'do we age at the same rate here as we do at home?' That's the kind of question that I wouldn't even consider until I'd been there long enough to think about the passage of time and the aging of bodies. Not in the first ten minutes!

 Similarly, from Lucas's perspective, the list of things I'd imagine Cassia needs to know badly include facts like, 'By the way, you can do magic, and so can your sister, and that's why she's sick, but I can teach you how to help her; there's a lot of political strife here in this realm and you're not entirely safe; we've got monsters in the basement so don't go wandering around too far; here's how travel to and from the realm works; also my dead mom's here.' I know that he wants to say these things, which are all extremely plot relevant, because he does eventually tell Cassia all about them. But first he finds it necessary to talk about timelines and relative aging, which is wildly bizarre.

This weird approach to deciding how to share information is in the narrative, too, not just the dialogue. At one point we have a time jump: Cassia has lunch, and then we jump to bedtime. This is fine if a character has a normal routine and we can imagine they proceed as usual until the next plot-relevant event. But this is Cassia's first day in the new realm. She doesn't have a routine. It's all new to her. So what did she do during the afternoon? It clearly didn't involve asking anyone any questions, because that evening she's still asking extremely basic questions, and the next morning she's wild with frustration at having all these other questions that she hasn't had a chance to ask anyone. So she didn't spend the afternoon talking to people and asking question. Maybe she spent it learning how to use her magic? Because the next morning Lucas asks her if she's ready to try using it, and I presume that the only reason she'd be more ready tomorrow than the day she arrives is if she started working on developing the skill. But if she did, we didn't see it, because the next scene is Doing Magic 101. So, again, what did she do that afternoon? It's as if the development of her understanding got stalled when the book decided to skip over the afternoon. If the author wanted her to go to bed immediately after arrival, then why didn't she arrive at 6pm or something? What's the point of this blank afternoon? It's baffling.

But, in addition to missing information, we also have repeated information. Remember the wolf-riding? We learn all about the wolf-riding when Lucas goes on a wolfback ride before Cassiaarrives in his realm, but when she arrives we get to be in her head when she learns about it. But her reaction isn't interesting or illuminating. She just thinks, 'wolfback riding? Wow, that's weird and different from home.' There was no point in going on that journey of discovery for her. It's just a boring delay in the action while we have to wiat for her to deal with her disbelief.

I recognize, reading back through this list of flaws, that each one is incredibly trivial. Each one is small and niggling and would not even make me blink in a better book. But the book is not a better book, and these trivial niggling irritants are not the only trivia niggling irritants. They are a sample, a subset of the full set that I highlighted as I read. Every trivial niggling irritant sits cheek by jowl with multiple other trivial niggling irritants. I could not turn a page without running into some weird conversation, some oddly dumb decision, some random appearance of two dudes who wander up, say hi, and then are forgotten because monsters attack and the plot moves on. I couldn't take it. I gave it up. DNF.

NB: I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley. Inasmuch as I can be sure of such things, I believe that this has not affected the content of my review.