Thank you to Netgalley for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Initially the title, cover, and plot intrigued me. I love a good transmigration plot point where a character gets transported into another world. No where in the synopsis did it hint that this was going to be a book about aliens which I was surprised about. Going into the book I expected it to be a fantasy, so reading about the sci-fi elements caught me off guard. 

Kaleys character was a bit unrealistic at times. I know that the whole point was that she didn’t know she was on an alien planet but how could she be so chill with the blue light chip in her arm and seeing a literal dragon. She was too nonchalant about everything strange going on that I didn’t find her character all that believable. I get that she’s a folklorist and an expert on fairytales but she seems way to accepting of the newfound magic when she supposedly believes they’re just on an island on earth. It’s just so unbelievable that she didn’t notice beforehand. Her biggest motivator was to document new fairytales and find a new topic to write her dissertation on for grad school, but the author spends little to no time fleshing out what specifically Kaley wants to research. It makes me feel detached from her motivations and ultimately her character.

The writing focuses a lot on telling us the characters thoughts and feelings instead of showing us. Particularly when Kaley finds out she’s been lied to we’re told that she goes through the stages of grief but we don’t see that in any of her actions, we’re just told she does and then the story moves right along.

When Kaley does eventually find out she was lied to, she takes it surprisingly well. She doesn’t have a big angry blowup like all the characters assumed she would, so the eventual reveal felt a bit lackluster. There was so much tension built up over how she would react, then she just remained calm and didn’t get mad and accepted everything so easily.

I also don’t like how it’s repeatedly brought up that everyone is trying to set Kaley and Tanek up together. So many characters point of that they would be so good together but we don’t actually see them develop their relationship with deeper one on one conversations that make their eventual confession of feelings seem unbelievable. On Kaley’s side it was mostly lust at the beginning as well. When Tanek first offered Kaley to stay and live with him instead of returning to Earth it just felt out of left-field and more out of convenience bc she gets along with his swans, not so much because he actually loves her. There’s too much telling and dialogue instead of actually showing us and building the relationships between the characters. 

The whole reason I picked this book up was because I was interested in how she would interact and influence the actual fairytales and stories, but the story didn’t really focus on that at all. When an earthen story was mentioned, save for the Hansel and Gretel tie in, it felt like we don’t really spend that much time with it. Or rather we didn’t spend much time in Kaley’s mind as she didn’t really think or analyze why the fairytales she knows are real in this new world. She just acknowledges they’re similar, solves the problem, and then we move on without her ever doing any critical thinking or tying it back to her research goals. She lets all the crazy plot points happen to her without any protest, which is so unrealistic. I get that she’s processing being lied to and it’s a strange new world she’s in, but we don’t spend nearly enough time in her character’s POV to go with her on this journey. 

Everything happens so quickly there is no tension or stakes. There isn’t a lot of world building and the plot moves too quickly. For example when they were on the mountain at the end of the book, there’s no explanation for why some characters appear when they do. And Kaley moves on from these strange occurrences without batting an eye and just accepting everything. It feels like I as the reader am thinking more critically about whats happening while the characters she just accepts everything, making me feel frustrated. The other MMC’s we follow know a lot more about the world, but there is little to no world building from their POVs either so we’re left in the dark. We don’t know anything about the world so I don’t feel a sense of fear or urgency for the characters. Without tension, the mystery falls flat and I feel removed from the characters, the twists, and the story. 

Overall the premise was interesting, but it ultimately fell flat for me.