Wyverary! Gleam! Saturday! I don't think a book's ending has ever made me smile quite like this one. But before I get to the ending, I need to talk about the rest. Listen. I am not good at raving and exclaiming about books that I love. I'm much better at reviews that have something to criticize. Writing reviews for books you love is really hard to do. So this will probably be short. But I'll try. Take a seat. Now. Heh.

So the one thing you just HAVE to know about this book is that the characters are fantastic. They are exactly the kind of characters you find in a children's fantasy novel but they are so intelligently rendered that it will make your head explode. EXPLODE. Mine did. I would love to talk to you about them, but beside the protagonist, I think they are best discovered by you reading about them on your own. September, however, is a perfectly precocious and brilliant child. Not everyone is going to like her because she is outspoken and a bit bossy but I really identified with her because this is how I was as a child. And still am. So I kind of fell in love with myself. What a narcissist I am.

When I started reading this novel, I had no idea where it was going or what the plot was supposed to be. But that's the beauty of it. And once the book hits its stride, you will be circumnavigating fairyland right along with September. The book is so whimsical. There are shades of Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland in here. Some of it is a little weird but it's also very cute. Adorable is the perfect word for it. There are talking animals, and on a few occasions I wondered if I was smoking up the ganja. Was I really reading what I was reading? Indeed, I was.

It's an amazing book. It truly is. It needs to be read by all and if you haven't gotten to it yet, bump this up on your tbr piles immediately. The ending had me in tears. I mean...I wish I could talk about it. I am DYING to talk about it. There is no cliffhanger. The loose endings were all wrapped up. I was worried about that but the happy ending that I would normally roll my eyes at had me squeeing for joy. There is a little thing at the end that has you thinking about the sequel but it's nothing that will leave you feeling cheated.

This is a perfect book in every way. The world-building is utterly detailed and mesmerizing. There are so many intelligent puns and I went "WOW" at this author's imagination so many times. This is the type of book that has you falling in love with reading all over again. Especially if you are feeling disillusioned. And I was. I cannot wait to read the sequel. I need to have it immediately.

I'm going to leave you with a few of my favorite lines/quotes/scenes from the book. There will be a giveaway on the blog coming for this one in August.

"My sister has no shame at all, September," Goodbye continued. "That's a very secret thing she did--right in front of you! You see, the future is a kind of stew, a soup, a vichyssoise of the present and the past. That's how you get the future: You mix up everything you did today with everything you did yesterday and all the days before and everything anyone you ever met did and anyone they ever met, too. And salt and lizard and umbrellas and typewriters and a lot of other things I'm not at liberty to tell you, because I took vows, and a witch's vows have teeth. Magic is funny like that. It's not a linear thinker. The point is if you mash it all up together and you have a big enough pot and you're very good at witchcraft, you can wind up with a cauldron full of tomorrow. That lump of greasy, slimy goop is a prophecy, and my sister cast it for you." ~page 32-33

Lye poured a bucketful of golden water over September's head. "When you are born," the golem said softly, "your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you're half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it's so grunged up with living. So every once in a while, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you'll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not so many facilities in your world that provide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true." ~page 60

Absolutely brilliant book. Get yourself a copy. I'd recommend this one to EVERYONE.