*An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

While it was somewhat cute, mostly entirely due to the characters' expressions, it didn't really satisfy. The story panels did a decent job at telling the story, and I liked that it was wordless, but I really would have liked some more idea of what was taking place through panels that flowed into one another. Some of the panels seemed to jump from one to the next without much idea of what was taking place or what happened in between. The idea was nice, and what we got was okay, but I wanted more.

I wanted to love this, I mean, I even tried to love it, but it wasn't working for me. To be honest, though it has been years since I read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, I'm pretty sure everyone would just be better off reading the original. Oh, sure, there are occasionally very clever bits and the writing, while often overly pretentious, is pleasant enough and even sometimes quite lovely. Alas, beyond that, there is very little of which to speak well. The narrative, while omniscient, skips back and forth between Ada, who tumbles into Wonderland and basically has a small collection of adventures Alice has already had, and Lydia, Alice's oft frustratingly dull older sister, and also Siam, a rescued slave-boy who wanders behind the Looking-Glass.

There are innuendos aplenty, and even an F-bomb, which I'm fairly certain is not quite in the vein of the original. (And yes, I realize this is "adult" fiction, blah.)

Really the only good bits are Ada in Wonderland, which I feel is basically what one could garner from reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. Also, there wasn't all that much of Ada in Wonderland for this being nearly 300 pages.

**An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

Don't bake angry!

Whatever mood Bee is in when she bakes is the same mood whoever eats her baked goods will be in. This magic can be useful, but sometimes pretty rough, especially when Bee bakes in a bad mood, and before they figure out that's the cause of the unusually ill-tempered customers. But Bee also is a pretty rad baker, and soon the royal palace wants Bee's baked good delivered to the palace, where she discovers a rather nasty arranged marriage in the making and dastardly plots ruinous to the country. She befriends the Princess Anika and helps her to escape so they can go inform the Mage Council of the unsavory goings-on in Zeewal. Along the way, they encounter a friendly gang of roving tulip pirates, father figures, and tree spirits. Oh, and Anika has a pet hedgehog, so that's cool.

I was so very pleased that Wil had a sort-of romance with Anika and NOT with Bee. #blessed

Overall, it was okay and there were some elements that I very much enjoyed, but it didn't bridge the gap for older readers as well as some MG books manage to, so that I would probably only recommend it for the intended audience.

I also got my hands on a hard-copy, so props to Capstone for their quality of publishing - the pages were thick and the binding was strong and tight.

**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

One of those in-between books. I liked it more than not, but due to my lack of interest in the beginning, procrastination, and the fact that most Netgalley books expire after a couple months, I realized I had two days to read this, which after company came and we played Pinochle all day long, that meant a few hours of staying up in order to finish this. So I was reading a little faster than normal so I could go to bed darnnit. (Daylight Savings is brutal).

At its core, this story is all about family. Edna's brother is stolen away by a hag and replaced with a cogling, and come hell or high water, she's gonna get him back. Enter Ike, who has his own agenda but is willing to help Edna get her brother back. They become a thing, but it was handled fairly well, and was mostly put on the back-burner and the rescue/quash hag takeover took precedence. Which I mightily appreciated.

Also, it must be noted that hags and ogres are not your typical hags and ogres of folklore. These guys are all magical folk who got magic by living on a swamp and then they came back to the city, and whoops, everyone hated them now (because ewwww and magic) and banished them, and then the hags and ogres rebelled and won, and then THEY were rebelled against and quashed, and now some of them are allowed to practice magic to heal the elite, but are mostly scorned, and shocker, some of them would very much like to try for a hostile takeover. The females are the hags and the males are the ogres, and much like the non-magical humans, they can be either good or bad, though of course, with derogatory names like "hag" and "ogre", quite a bit of ill-will has been cultivated against them as a whole.

I guess I liked the overall idea of this book, but it failed a bit in my estimation in the execution. I didn't get a good sense of atmosphere, which with this world and the magic, would have been very nice to have. The world building in general felt rather one-dimensional, and the religion concerning the "Seven Saints" (which were mentioned frequently by both the hags and Edna) was vague at best. Not a bad book by any means, but not great either.

**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

What to say about this one...it's a tough one to talk about, in my opinion, because it's not bad per se, but not good either. (Ugh, these books are the worst to review.)

Mainly, I didn't care. I thought about giving up pretty much the whole way through, which is just never good. But some of the actual issues I had with this beyond lack of interest are that this is labeled YA but the writing, the dialogue, everything is juvenile, and not in a good way. Especially as the oldest MC is supposed to be 18, with the rest of them a few years younger, but they all pretty much have the same maturity level. Ellis was the best character, and there was a definite lack of the shapeshifter, alas.

Also, for being near 350 pages, it's actually quite surprising how basically nothing happens. For that reason, it also moves very slow.

Honestly, it's not terrible, but it didn't hold my interest, and is the exact opposite of what you might call memorable.