Review: Great but not perfect.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 9, 2013
**3.5 stars**She cleared her throat, lifting an extra-large banana high into the air. "Mysticals are naturally more endowed than commoners." With her other hand, she raised a regular sized banana, holding them side by side. Point made.I'll take one mystical, please.King Hall was nothing like I expected. I pictured it like a cross between Twilight and the Elemental series by Brigid Kemmerer. I was picturing love triangles and jealousy and romance and smirking. This book was not those things. First of all, it is not a romance. It is much more of an adventure-ish book. Sort of like X-men, really. I wish I had known that when I started this book because I kept trying to figure out who was going to end up with whom and it was making my brain hurt. This story really isn't about that. It is about friendship, first and foremost, which is an awesome change of pace for me.What did I like? So many things. For one, this is a very sex positive book. The characters all have copious amounts of sex and it is looked upon as a natural thing. Like scratching an itch, if you will. I loved that part of the book. This isn't a sex on page book, FYI, but sex is an open and accepted thing among this group of mystical students. I also loved the GLBT aspect. Many of the characters ran the GLBT spectrum and it was treated as sort of a non-thing. Props to Scarlett Dawn for being forward thinking with her characters' sexuality. At times, this book was also incredibly engaging. I often couldn't tear myself away from Kindle, that is how badly I wanted to find out what was going to happen.What didn't work? The world building could have used a lot of help. I think they could have ditched the whole "school" aspect. This was barely based in the school, in fact, I often forgot that they were supposed to be attending school altogether. The whole concept of the "Kings" and the Mys and Com races mixing leaves a lot to be explored. I didn't always get the dynamics at play. This book also struggles with pacing. It is only about 280 pages but it felt like double that. At times it dragged and the energy really petered out.I also didn't know that this book was an intro to a series (it must be!). There is no real ending to this book. It kind of stops midway through an action scene, a true cliffhanger. I felt pretty freaking frustrated to reach the end with no resolution in site (in fact, things are in incredible upheaval at the end).Did I enjoy this book. Abso-freaking-lutly. It was a totally different read for me and I loved how it wasn't the same trite young adult paranormal romance that I have seen 100 times. I can't wait for the next book to come out.**Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review**