Oh, this book is just, chef’s kiss, exactly what I was hoping it would be. It’s the magic of Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles, that delightful send-up of story tropes within the genre, but applied to isekai in the ‘fantasy world’ realm instead of the fantasy world alone.1 It also has an interesting twist on that in that it’s not just the main character who gets yoinked into Fantasy World – her mom and brother come along too, which worked really well to alleviate the underlying sense of loneliness that genre usually has.2
It also did a pretty good job at capturing that sense of building something that I love. Definitely in less detail; this is a young adult book after all, and spending several pages talking about, like, staffing logistics would’ve gone over like a lead balloon, but the amount of it that’s present felt just right.
All in all, this was a really fun book to read. My only complaint is that the note it ends on feels like the end of the pilot episode of a TV series; I want to see more of this world, learn more about how the magic works, all that.3 There’s a whole lot of threads set up that aren’t abandoned, per se, but also clearly don’t come to anything within this book. I suppose I’ll have to wait for the sequel. In the meantime, however, I absolutely recommend it; check it out.4
- I can’t believe I just added an “isekai” tag to my blog. ↩
- A lot of isekai stories seem like they’re trying to avoid addressing that, or talk up how much of a loner the protagonist was before it all happened, but that’s not less lonely. Humans are social animals! We’re meant to be part of a tribe, of a society. Slicing off someone’s entire support network all at once is gonna do some damage. ↩
- Particularly since the magic has some clear bridging notes to how computers work, and boy am I ever a sucker for a hard magic system that’s computer-science-flavored. ↩
- This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩