James Nugent

*Spoilers* So, this isn't the worst book I've ever read. That being said, if someone asked me for book recommendations, this wouldn't be the first thing to come to mind. Darcie Little Badger is an excellent writer when it comes to characterization and world-building, but as far as the actual storytelling goes, it kind of fell flat for me. Honestly, my main problem was that there were a lot of things brought up that I thought were going to be important plot points later, but then they just...weren't. The mockingbird. The catfish. Thou Own Dave (especially the seemingly pointless livestream at the end??). Oli's blanket. Bruhn. The whole bounty hunter situation. Oli's siblings. Nina's mom. Even the monsters—it's reiterated so many times that the monsters in the bottomless lake are supposed to be dangerous, yet every time we see Oli interact with them, he gets away unscathed. Heck, even in the bottomless lake, all it takes to convince a monster to take him to earth is...asking nicely? I did learn some things about the Lipan Apache people and their traditional belief systems, and the whole idea of animal people, the Reflecting World, world shaping, etc. were very interesting to me as I'd never heard of them prior. The characters were likable and fleshed out, and Little Badger's vivid descriptions of the settings and events like the tornado were very well done. I also liked the cover art and title, which are what drew me to it in the first place. Overall, this was a decent enough book for a school assignment. But I can't say I came away from it thinking, "I want to seek out more of this author's writing!" like I do when I finish a book I really really like, and I probably wouldn't read it again. 5.5/10.