Life is never easy as the new girl, and for Molly, this is as true of a statement as any. After becoming an outcast in her new town, she goes for a walk and discovers a secret portal leading to another world. She is fascinated and shellshocked, even more so when she discovers that she fits in better on the other side…even though it is illegal for her to be there. Swept up in her feelings for a boy named Victor, she throws caution to the wind and continues to slip into the portal.

Very wonderful worldbuilding in this story, and the teen angst was definitely on par. Molly as a whole, however, I felt could’ve used a bit more character development. She seemed a bit flat to me, but that might be because she was so smitten which in that case makes her as real of a teenager as any.

There are some wonderful descriptions in this book, and it definitely takes the reader on a journey.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.
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Overall, I get the premise and it's not bad, but I think it was not executed as well as it could have been.

The writing generally suffers from unidiomatic expressions that jerk me a little out of reading--by no means ubiquitous, but still a frequent occurrence--or overwriting. In that sense, and in the romance that developed, I thought a lot of Twilight, but thought that Twilight, of which I am not a huge fan, still did a better job with characterization and world-building.

I found myself skipping past long chunks talking about life back in LA; I wonder if they were fully necessary, or if they could have been more engagingly written.

The romance, like many I've read that try to write the hate-into-love path, didn't always feel believable to me. The hate didn't seem like real hate, and the love seemed to come kind of out of nowhere.

The characterization, which for me is the most crucial, was also weak. I found myself incredulous at a few different points with the various characters' reactions. For example, if Weston and Victor have been best friends for so long and Victor has even saved his life, why should tiny little circumstances cause one to blow up at the other?

The world-building wasn't bad. However--and this might be because I'm not as big a fan of sci-fi--some of the names seemed so clunky that I found myself disbelieving once again.

Again, I think I get the overall premise, and I appreciate the author's hard work and effort. But I have a fairly forgiving suspension of disbelief as a reader, and yet my disbelief came sharply into the picture many times in this story, ultimately causing me to stop reading after reading through about 25 chapters. ( )

Thanks to Netgalley.com and inMotion Capitol for allowing me access to this title.

This was a case of great story, but so-so writing. It was all "tell" and no "show". And the whole "I went through a big light show, so I must magically be on another planet, even though I'm still in a cave thing was really annoying. There was no sense of discovery.

Overall, not a great execution. ( )

Great book, more description then I like, but it was needed, more high school drama then I like, but the book wouldn't have made sense without it. When I couldn't read I was thinking about the book, going over everything in my head, trying ti decide what came next only to be so very wrong. The author gave me a copy of this book and i would like to thank her. ( )

When I saw the cover I thought, simple and GORGEOUS--so I read the blurb. YES I wanted to read this, it sounded like a really cool concept.

This was just not a good reader experience for me.

The writing felt choppy, and the characters made no sense to me. Their dialogue reminded me of when I have conversations with myself in the mirror: they didn't feel like they had different dynamics in their speech. To me it sounded like it was always the same person talking.

The MC, Molly, sees Victor for the first time and he's hostile and suspicious and for some reason she instaloves him? And throughout most of the book he's mean and she's all "I'm madly in love with him, and his aversion to me isn't a big deal, he's just a little resistant." What?

And Molly's "friends" at her high school: so Alexa you could consider a friend, since she actually talks friendly with Molly. But Camille (Camilla? I don't even remember her name) was never nice to her and out of nowhere she spills her heart out to Molly, then goes back to being a b**** to her? And Chris is the biggest douche and doesn't treat her well! I don't understand why she was friends with them, or why they were in the story at all.

And every fiber of Victor's being HATED Molly and then at the drop of a hat he's like, "I'm so in love with you, too, but I'm supposed to hate you so I can't be with you but wait! I lied let's make this work because you're it for me."

No one's actions made any sense!

And throughout the story there would be random tangents, like more significance would be put on a situation that didn't actually matter at all. Some events happened at random and I'd think, "Where the heck did that come from and why did that just happen?"

And honestly, I still don't know what the plot was supposed to be . . . Was it just Molly getting Victor to love her? Because there didn't really seem to be a problem that needed a resolution, and I found myself wondering "What's the point of this story?" a lot.

Which KILLED ME because I really wanted to love this book!

I will say this: the setting is completely original and the world-building of Arkana went well. I did like the uniqueness of the place and I felt transported there myself. The only problem was that nothing happened once I was there.

I feel really bad that I didn't have a good experience with this story, and it hurts me to give any book such a low rating. BUT some stories aren't for everyone.

1/5 stars ( )