I wish I liked Emily's books more. She seems to be the sanest member of the team, but her books have issues. It's odd because I connect most with Emily in a lot of ways and her story thus appeals more to me, since I am also a child of divorcees, although I never got to live with my parents while they were married to each other.

A lot of this book made me ask "why is Emily such an idiot". I get that she's 12 or 13, but I find it hard to believe that someone that age with as much purported experience with animals as she has doesn't know what trauma is and what it can do to animals. Why is Lorelei reacting so horribly? Gee, it might be because something TRAUMATIZED her. Kind of like when abused animals shrink when people walk towards them because the animal is afraid of getting him. I also don't know what she thought to accomplish by lifting a bag of dog food in the air. Like... when it kept going did she not realize something was wrong? Why didn't someone familiar with animals not finish putting food in it, seal it and THEN put it away? I do appreciate the connection between Emily and the unicorn. I guess this foreshadows stuff in book 12, but anyway. Emily gets the best magical animal (not Ozzie, bleh). And that makes me happy.

I also think that Ghyll is meant to be funny and some sort of parody of the "Frog Prince" story. But he's just creepy and irritating. No means no. End of story. Stop persisting in ignoring the woman you are talking to. I don't think that the story improved for his presence. If he was gone... we wouldn't have lost out on anything, really.

Maybe what bothers me is the very shallow nature of the villains. They're evil because... just because? Are they all just sadists? What do they get out of doing all this? We never really learn the secret behind the Sorceress until books 6 and 12. Which is on purpose, obviously, but the one-off villains are kind of... boring. And lacking and suspense.

I don't know. Otherwise it was kind of an unremarkable book in a lot of ways. Although it has some secrets if you've finished the series already, so it's worth a reread. BIG foreshadowing for the end of the series. ( )