A STANDALONE YA FANTASY THAT 
 YOU NEED TO READ THIS SUMMER 
 "Come now, my child, if we were planning to harm you, do you think we'd be lurking here beside the path in the very darkest part of the forest?" 
 Kenneth Patchen 
 Read: January 2016 
 Format: Hardcover 
 Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy 
 Representation: YES POCs and LGBTQ+ 
 No spoilers ahead but if you want to go into the book without knowing then don't read this post until after you read it. 
 So I read this book a while ago (January to be exact) and the circumstances by which I purchased this book were purely coincidental. Nonetheless reading this book was an enjoyable surprise. 
 My rating: 5 Glittering Magical Stars 
 This book is a standalone and not a lot of authors can pull out good world building within only one book (let's be real some authors can't achieve that in several books) but Holly Black managed to design this world between our world in like 70 pages. Wow I'm just wow??? 
 I will say this is fantasy but is in the Urban Fantasy side as well?? Let me see if I can explain myself. 
 The story is set in this town called Fairfold were the normal life conveys with the vicinity of faeries. The people are superstitious and they have this little amulets and stuff ahhhhhh. And like people die because of the faeries but tourists love to go there because faeries. Am I making sense? 
 Our beautifully broken heroes are Hazel and her brother Ben. Well at least they are the main we have another characters that I'm gonna talk about after. 
 I loooove how the relationship of Ben and Hazel was written. From my experience with YA, siblings are usually written as quarrelsome and not very close but Ben and Hazel's relationship was beautifully crafted and UGH I LOVE IT. 
 Sooooo in our town there is glass coffin that has inside a sleeping faerie prince. Since they were children Ben and Hazel have loved to visit the coffin. They sat there and talked to the prince, they cried there, they said things that never said to anyone else... I'm so emo right now excuse me it was beautiful. 
 Okay okay I'll try to sound coherent. 
 Maybe? 
 So everyone in the town knows about the coffin and the sleeping prince but everyone is pretty chill about it. Except Ben and Hazel, they LOVE the prince and they have always wanted to wake him up. 
 Stuff happens because it always does and the prince wakes up! But oh dear the mystery surrounding his awaking is truly remarkable. Why now? What caused this sudden turn of events? Ha you would have to read and find out. 
 But if you are not convinced to read yet I'm gonna give you more reasons of why this book is awesome: 
 The mythology! So we have a lot influence of western myths and European traditions related to the fae but we also have Yoruba mythology (Yoruba is a religion from Africa that people in Latin America also practice) which I think is amazing because usually we just see western culture. 
 Ben and Hazel are named for bunnies! 
 Since they were kids Ben and Hazel have been fighting monsters in the darkest part of the forest (haha see what I did there). While Hazel is the knight in shiny armor carrying a sword, Ben uses music to lure the monsters and distract them. 
 So the majority of chapters are told from Hazel's perspective but we also get Ben sometimes. They are both equally awesome and broken and made my heart hurt a lot. I love these siblings guys. 
 Ben is gay!!!! 
 Ben's best friend is Jack and he is a changeling and his story alone is pretty freaking amazing. 
 Also Jack is a POC 
 Jack's brother is Carter and ugh their storyline is also amazing. 
 Obviously Carter is also a POC 
 The cover is so gorgeous 
 The writing is just amazing, truly beautiful and captivating 
 There is a lot of badassery and feelings and is just amazing 
 What are you still doing here go and READ THIS BOOK. 
 If you love good solid fantasy books this is for you. 
 Just a PSA tho this book is weird. In a good way of course but is certainly peculiar but omg I recommend it to everyone! Go ahead and adopt this beautiful book baby. 
 this review appeared in havanakedavra(dot)wordpress(dot)com