This sounds like it would be just my thing, but for some reason, it wasn't.

It's got good writing, concerning both the prose and the plot, but the world-building, while interesting, felt very discombobulated. It tried to explain itself: the Language, the Library, and the fey, creatures of chaos, and dragons, creatures of order, but it wasn't working too well for me.

Also, the writing mostly evokes a Victorian feel to it (though less than the cover would indicate), but the combination of modern technology here and there and modern phrases scattered throughout, while it made sense far as the story was concerned, didn't actually mesh very well in the story. (Congrats if you understood that. Have a cookie.)

As far as Irene and Kai go, I really have very little opinion of them. Kai felt rather one-dimensional and I didn't really...care about Irene? But Vale was pretty cool, and I'd love to see more of him in future books.

As far as the plot goes, I liked the clever bits dealing with Alberich, but I don't quite understand his motivation (they kinda explained it) but even less so how it would work. Kicking myself I didn't write down the page number for this.

To be totally honest, I think I would have liked this best if it had been a completed standalone, rather than at least a six book deal. But I liked this passably well, and am just interested enough to give the next book a go.

This is a bit of the stuff I garnered about the things I wanted more info on:

The Library does what it does for the love of books. Simply to collect books, all the books in all the alternate worlds, and store them and protect them, so that if that book should ever be lost to time or disaster, there will still be a copy to make more from.

The Library exists out of time, so the Librarians are essentially ageless, except when out on book missions, when time passes for them normally.

The Language the fully initiated Librarians use is apparently heard by those who don't understand it in their own language, but with a certain unplaceable accent. The Language is sort-of magic, but it works best when directing something to do what it naturally should be doing, or that it naturally is designed to do (unlocking a door and such). The Language is ever evolving, adding grammar and vocabulary, as most books brought back to the Library are studied and the words or phrases or cool descriptions of the color black are added to the Language. (Or the Language itself evolves from the newly gathered literature???)

Chaos can infect a world, and after the world has been infected and corrupted, then the Fey can manifest to wreck more havoc. But thenDragons are like super chill and creatures of order and often show up to help restore order to the Chaos-corrupted world. Dragons can also take humanoid form.

There were some good bits to this. The atmosphere was just right for the first 50 pages, the writing style was pretty decent, and the general idea behind the story, as Sherlock and Moriarty, is clever. Unfortunately, I have more bad things to say than good.

What this mostly suffered from was, well, it was a few things. First off, Lock and Mori made out way too much. I mean, come on. There are actually people being murdered and they're, apparently, trying to solve the case?? Mori's brothers are being abused physically and verbally, but she doesn't expend nearly as much energy trying to help them escape that situation as she does snogging with Lock. This is even more frustrating when Mori keeps going on and on about how she wants to get her brothers to a safe home and they are the main reason for why she's doing what she's doing, but oh gosh, I guess she just can't be bothered to try to speed up that process by not MAKING OUT WITH LOCK EVERY 20 PAGES. The absolutely worst case of this was when Mori finally gets ahold of a case file and needs to review it with Lock (and lemme tell you, it was a pretty dang important case file) and instead of reading the darn thing, they just *slams fist on table* kiss and completely ignore the case file. *cue rage quit*

And then the mystery itself was so straightforward - no wonderfully crafted mystery with clever twists and woven clues that I've come to expect from mysteries, let alone Sherlock mysteries. I don't know if it helped that the murderer was so obviously the murderer that he/she couldn't be the murderer because that would be too easy, wouldn't it? I guess it did make me consider suspecting someone else because it was so blatant 

that I couldn't believe it to be true.

Also, where the heck is Mori's character going? I realize she's based off of Moriarty, so that would seem to indicate certain things, but it's not like liberties aren't being taken with Mori's character as relates to Moriarty. I just can't decide if Petty is going to write her as a nemesis/opponent of Lock in future books, or if it's gonna be this love/hate relationship, as somewhat indicated by the last page

Also, she is horrifyingly femi-nazi and it hurt my soul. She is not a feminist, because they fight for and are satisfied with equity. She isn't, because men aren't. ???????Who the heck thinks like that?????

*DNF AT 104 PAGES*

Maybe someday, if I ever feel so inclined, I shall pick this back up and finish it, but I doubt it. It's not that it was horrible and I had to throw it against the wall in a fit of rage or disgust, but it was hardly compelling and the pacing was crap, not to mention that I hated Rene, the main love interest who is not who he says he is ooooooooooooh how exciting. Really, the only person I genuinely liked was Tom, Sophia's brother.

So until I hear otherwise that Rene disappears into an alternate dimension or has a visit from his good old friend the Razor, or that the rest of the book was worth slogging through, this one is a pass.

I think it should be said that I was wavering on whether or not to read this, mainly because me and de la Cruz's books do not get on very well together. But realizing that this a prequel to a Disney Channel Movie changed my mind right quick. And it ended up being worlds better than Frozen or The Ring and The Crown.

On to the book!

It was very slow, as the quest part of the book doesn't even start until nearly page 200. And when we do finally get there, it's not terribly exciting. But until till we get there, we spend a little (too much) time getting to know our main characters, which was nice but could have been cut down a little. I actually quite liked some of the characterization, though their "evilness" is like a puppy trying to growl and just ending up looking adorable. Though in their case, it's more laughable. But this is MG and a prequel to a DCMO, so...probably for the best. Still, when being "evil" is shoplifting rotten peaches and playing silly pranks, it's hard not to snicker.

I did have a question concerning the magic...Magic is prohibited/impossible in Isle of the Lost, but it is also, as far as I could tell, heartily discouraged in Auradon. Why? Because if you use magic, you're bound to use it for evil eventually? I'm pretty sure we had good magic users in Disney.



I couldn't figure that bit out. Oh, and it was disappointing to realize that I don't like Belle or the Beast in their later years. Childhood faves crushed:( But their son turned out pretty legit, so I guess there's that.

The most fun of this book was seeing all the characters from classic Disney movies and their descendants - Madame Mim's granddaughters, Professor Ratigan's minions, etc.

Pretty excited for the movie - though, let's be honest, I already was. #derp

Maybe I was too excited for this book. I had such high hopes and it really turned out to be just okay.

For one thing, I thought it would be so much more about smuggling and running a smuggler's inn, but actually it wasn't about that much at all. There was a treasure, and some smugglers did show up, but that was about the extent of it. It was more Milo and his relationship with his family that drove the book. Which wasn't bad, and I did very much like how his adoption and his relationship with his parents is portrayed, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

The plot twist, though, really got me. I think the greatest part is that when it happened, I sat there and thought, "I SHOULD have seen that". But I didn't, and that's partly what made it so great.

I loved the setting, but I wanted so much more from it. You have this fantastic setting, but I felt like we barely scratched the surface. Also, the descriptions were not all that they could have been.

One of the only things that actually annoyed me was the roleplaying aspect. It was played up far too much and it got frustrating to constantly have Milo and Meddy referred to by another names.