Good, not great

Could have been better, wasn't bad, some really great ideas but just a little dull and slow in places.

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Great cozy fantasy

Engaging characters and well read. Charming and funny, it keeps you reading. Would recommend it.

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Narration was interesting....

Nice story, which kept me engaged. I did spend the first third trying to work out what accent the narrator had. It was very distracting. Her voice was vaguely annoying, but I stuck with it because I liked the story.

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Really sweet and amusing

An unexpectedly lovely story with a believable main character. I'm a big fan of magic and baking, and this combines both delightfully.

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cute middle grade book

this book went places. it was fun. I was probably too old to properly appreciate it, but I was entertained the whole way through, which is more than I can say for a lot of middle grade books.

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Engaging characters, bit slow to get going

This isn’t a deep book - it’s heroine is 14, and it’s told entirely from her perspective, but she’s an engaging young thing who ends up having to deal with far, far more than you should at that, or any, age. It takes a while to get going and some of the events that transpire are a tad obvious, and some I thought obvious didn’t happen, so what do I know?! The latter part did pick up pace and it then rattled along to a rather good conclusion.

However, I was surprised to hear it read in UK English, by an American narrator. The narration, and Mona, are read in a rather cut-glass RP (received pronunciation) that, to be fair, the narrator holds well, but to my UK-English ears it sounded a bit carefully over-annunciated. Others characters came from all over, a bit of Irish, a bit of Australian, a bit of generic-rustic-yokel (think Sam Gamgee in the LotR films), and sometimes it was all a bit of a blend. I didn’t get why Mona, raised from a young age by her aunt and uncle, spoke so differently to them, and far more like the ruling classes. Mona is a baker, an ordinary girl, and no one else from her family, or the others we meet that she knows, speak that way. I thought I’ d get used to it, but I didn’t, and it nagged at me all the way through.

I’m not a young adult, or even an older child, so I’m not the target audience here, and I’m not criticising the story - it’s good, the characters are utterly engaging, the lesson that grown ups can’t always fix things is well learnt, there’s a battle at the end that is rather bloodless (lots of whacking and hitting), and,

SPOILER

just in case these things bother you,

someone you get to know as the book progresses dies. And it’s sadly done.

But the accents annoyed me. I mean, American author, American narrator - why go England-English?

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2 people found this helpful

Loved it

Really good performance rof a really good book. I binge listened it. Definitely recommend

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Dough-lems

a little simple as story's go, but given its from the point of view of a 14 year old that's to be expected. Good writing and performance in general just can't believe they were constantly referred to as "Bread Golems" and not "dough-lems" that's my main complaint tbh

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2 people found this helpful

wizards guide

really enjoyed this story . kept me interested right the way till the end .its so nice to have a good story with out all the blood and gore. look fprward to finding more of this authors books .

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Great performance and good story

characters were great and story had me giggling in several places. very original
Great intro to this author

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