Summer has failed to come, the land is starving, and strange monsters have begun to appear. When an invitation is received from the Fairy Queen, no one thinks it's a coincidence. 
 There was so much about this book that I liked, and so much that made me like the idea of the book, but I found that it just fell flat. 
 For one thing, there's the non-stock fantasy backdrop (in this case, Lo has created a classical Chinese-inspired culture). It was very refreshing to see, and would have been interesting if it had lasted for more than a few pages. As soon as the initial quest is established, the questing party heads off into the woods, leaving culture behind, and the remainder was indistinguishable from any other fantasy setting (particularly the fairy town, which had absolutely nothing of note to it at all). 
 The lesbian romance was a draw as well, but its development felt somewhat clunky. By the end, when Taisin had to finally make the choice between her career or her feelings for Kaede, I had trouble caring much. Perhaps because the characters never felt particularly developed. 
 I had some problems with the ending. (view spoiler)[The whole ending, for example. The "twist" that the Fairy Queen was actually Elowen's real mother was not only predictable and overdone, it was also utterly uninteresting. I hadn't been given any reason to care about either character, since they had occupied such a tiny fraction of what had been, essentially, a long walk through the woods punctuated by occasional attacks, that it felt completely unnecessary. To then send Kaede on yet another quest, apparently for no reason other than to add to the page length, felt rather silly. (hide spoiler)] 
 Much of the book felt rushed and unpolished. The easiest example would be the baby the travellers met in Ento. As they approach and then enter the home, the baby is first crying, then begins to cry, then is asleep and coos as it wakes. It's hard to imagine that this sort of thing survived the first edit. 
 And, of course, there was the POV jumping. It was all over the place. I understand that Lo wasn't going for a straight Third Person Limited, but the POV would sometimes jump several times a paragraph, and at least a few times I caught it jumping in a single sentence. It was too much, too abrupt, and it added little to the telling. 
 My final major grip was Lo's use of the word "for." Over and over again, we saw the following construction: "So and so did this, for they wanted to." Two sentences in a row might have the exact same construction. And it was doubly strange because it's something that I associated with purple prose formality, while much of the narrative tone was more informal. Which, I suppose, is a bonus complaint: the tone-hopping. 
 Overall, I enjoyed reading it, but I was disappointed by the overall sloppiness of the writing. I'd still recommend it, if only as short, fun read, but with too many shortcomings to really be taken for anything more.