Real rating 2.5 
 Touch of power was only okay. The plot was decent. The secondary characters were pretty likable, although the main characters, Avry and Kerrick, were pretty unremarkable. 
 My main complaint with this book was that it seems to have lacked an editor. Maybe it did have an editor, I don't know, but if it did, he/she should be fired. There were lots of sentences that were poorly put together, or lacked proper grammar. I'm seeing this more and more in published works lately, and I absolutely can't stand it. I'll let one or two small grammatical issues slide, but after that I start to lose a lot of respect for the author, and then I can't take the book seriously after that. Why should I care about a story if the author couldn't care enough to make sure it was polished? 
 Another problem along the same vein was the language used. This is a story with magic and castles and spending months journeying from point a to point b because there are no cars or technology or any of those modern gadgets. But that didnt stop the author from using modern language that totally wrenches the reader out of the story's world. I seriously doubt that people in the world Snyder built would actually refer to forest magic as "tree mojo," just as I doubt that a female would refer to her group of male traveling companions as "the guys." A teenager in this day and age, sure. But that's not the setting Snyder was going for. Avry's language was often annoying and sarcastic, as well. She kept adding single-word sarcastic comments after a sentence, and it got old fast. (Not to mention distracting from the time period, again.) She'd say something to the effect of "So-and-so avoided capture by hiding in the shadows. Smart." or "If I healed him I'd suffer for 20 days before finally dying. Nice." Not actual quotes, but you get the gist. 
 Overall, it wasn't a horrible read....but it was unprofessionally written and predictable, and the writing often made me want to tear my hair out.