What intrigued me about this book is how Sarah Beth Durst brought something as common as a reunion and a scoping out of perspective college into an adventure of magic, action and romance. There was a sense of realism to the book, as well as some weird and wonderful magical elements. The way the gargoyles were used as sentinels and a source of wisdom made the book interesting in a way that had me thinking of Harry Potter. No - that doesn't mean that this book was like our famous Harry, but Sarah's characters were lovely. I really enjoyed them.Let's talk about Lily. Lily was a junior whose only dream was to get into Princeton. I wouldn't say she was fixated on it, but that was mainly because of her mom. Lily was a loving daughter. who felt she had not only lost her dad, but was losing her mom as well. Only two other things mattered to her, apart from Princeton and that was her mother and her grandfather. She's a strong character - I think she is anyway. She fights for what is right and battles against what is wrong. And she's loyal And has no idea she's magical.But what type of magical creature she is, well, let's just say she's no wizard - that's for sure.The main male character fascinates me as well. He's definitely drool-worthy, but once again that's just my opinion. And that's Tye. Tye of hot auburn and ebony hair. There's a lot more to him than that though. He sees Lily's potential from his very first sighting of her. He has his feet in both worlds - both the magical and the real realms. He's a protector and he looks out for Lily - even when she's unaware he is. Stalkerish? Not in the least. He's not that type of boy. He also has his own story to tell and how that story folds into the other secondary character's life was really unexpected. The secondary characters are what make this book I think. First, you have the gargoyles that talk - mainly the Literate Ape and the Chained Dragon. But you also have Fairies, Goblins, Unicorns - the list of magical creatures goes on and on. And then there's the human secondary characters - like Jake, Mr Mayfair, Grandpa and Rose, Lily's mom. I think the thing that disappoints me is that they didn't seem to be as well developed as they could have been. I didn't know much about them. Only the merest hints of their lives and what they were like.And, then there's the Knights - some of them are not the knight-in-shining-armor type.Using Princeton as a setting was great. I've read too many books where the setting has been a high school, and it was a nice change to have a college setting instead. As much as I love a school setting, it's nice when the closest you get to a classroom is a library, which has out-of-control and quite demented bookshelves - which is what you have in this book.I found this book a very enjoyable read. There's a lot I haven't said because they would contain spoilers. I wouldn't say it reached the 'wow' or 'love' factor for me, but it definitely isn't in the 'it was okay' field either.So, I guess you would have figured out what my rating is:-Three out of five wands.This review can be found here at http://magicalmanuscriptsandwritingthings.blogspot.co.nz/
