When it comes to children's entertainment, there's always two categories: the stuff kids will like and the stuff grown-ups want them to like. It's a rare work that fits into both, yet Gwendolyn Gray does so with ease. The book has so many nuggets of wisdom that not only kids need to hear but adults, too. Bring up an image of the one inspiration poster that hit you with exactly what you needed to hear exactly when you needed to hear it. (After which, if you're like me, you walked away pretending it had no effect on you whatsoever.) If that moment could somehow be captured in a middle grade novel, Gwendolyn Gray is it.

Gwendolyn is a protagonist with very human struggles. The book opens with her facing the possibility that everything she's done to help people might not only be undone, but it might not have even been helpful to begin with. Now on the run from the same blank-faced "mister men" from the previous book, she finds her only escape is through a portal where the magical creatures on the other side might be just as dangerous as the ones she's running from.

I read this book knowing it was the second of the series, but the narration caught me up quickly, and there was never a point I felt lost. I connected to Gwendolyn right away. There's times when she fails to see her self-worth and times when she's childishly overconfident. She's a character who both succeeds and fails, often the latter at the worst possible times. And while she has incredible powers, but she doesn't always have access to them, certainly not when she's feeling down on herself. She makes mistakes that are entirely her fault and doesn't always want to own up to them right away. She also has a series of emotional struggles that are portrayed in both a realistic and sympathetic way.

The settings in this book are just as strong and well thought out as its protagonist. The descriptions are rich, creative, and vivid, pulling the reader through amazing worlds that feel completely real, no matter how many magical, implausible things are happening. When an author directly tells the audience (paraphrasing here) that "I've got quite a way with words, and even I can't quite describe how this felt," it displays a level of confidence I would otherwise be really put off by...except that B.A. Williamson really is that good with words.

This book was an absolute pleasure to read, and I will be picking up the first one for sure. Both to read it for me and to read it with my kids.

This story is really slow to unfold. I am not particularly enjoying the heroine. She is whiny, and way too cynical for the heroine of a fantasy series. She needs some counterpart to her pessimism. I love middle grade, but I can’t see myself recommending this story to any kids in my life. The author is doing some interesting things with merging fantasy worlds (dystopian, fairy, etc). However this is not enough if the characters don’t give us something to root for. There is also two conflicting voices, the narrator and the heroine. I am not always sure who is telling the story. If I am going to read a middle grade book to my kids, or recommend to them, it would not be this.

#NetGalley
The Fantastical Exploits of Gwendolyn Gray has adventure much like the first one, but we learn more about Gwendolyn and her powers. I like the idea of how she is exposed to various characters and what she learns from each one will help mold her in future books.

I loved the cover art of this book. It really draws the eye. The story was great an very detailed. I loved Gwendolyn and her fight to escape, stay safe and learn to control her magical abilities. Despite of every obstacle she has to face.

The Fantastical Exploits of Gwendolyn Gray is a children’s book, so it wouldn’t be accurate to say that I *enjoyed* it in quite the same way I’d enjoy a book for adults. Besides, I’m not the biggest fan of books where the protagonist has apparently limitless powers.

But this kept my attention for nearly a fortnight between other books, which is a huge point in its favour.

What I liked:

The wonderful writing!

The world Gwendolyn visits and the people she encounters there are all skilfully and vividly drawn, from Cyria Kytain’s weird steampunky lab to Faeoria to Gwendolyn’s own dystopian City, which she’s trying to save from the mysterious Mister Men. Gwendolyn suffers setbacks and the odds seem legitimately against her. The eventual mastermind behind the plot wasn’t who I expected it to be at all.

The book features two powerful female characters (three, if you count the faerie queen Titania). The nods to Shakespeare were alright, particularly genderfluid Puck. The protag’s mental health also features prominently.

What I didn’t like:

Fantastical Exploits is the second in a series (which, predictably, I forgot to check for before ordering). Lacking a clear idea of the events of the previous books affected my understanding of what was going on in this one.

The phrase “It was a very specific sort of___” was repeated at least eight times. I was also slightly annoyed at Cyria Kytain’s way of talking at first, but that’s really scraping the barrel for complaints.

This is not so much a dislike as a nitpick, a matter of personal taste and probably a result of my reading this as an adult, but it felt a tiny bit paint-by-numbers to me. Like ‘plug in your adventure and off you go’. I can’t explain how or why. Again, this is probably to do with the protagonist being overpowered, or the central premise of her being the only one who’s able to provide the citizens with imagination. I know that imagination, ideas and creativity are important, but that didn’t make it any more enjoyable for me when Gwendolyn fought enemies with the power of imagination alone. It seemed a bit too direct for me.

I’m much more of a fan of the sorts of books where ordinary children are dragged into a quest to hunt down a mysterious artefact.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3094357567?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

This story is, as I think, very well done. The cover is really beautiful. It looks high quality and appealing. The color combination and the design are a perfect match for the book. This novel has a very good and interesting storyline that quickly captivates you. All of the characters were very nice and all had very different characters. The descriptions of the emotions, the environment and the individual scenes are extremely well done and you can imagine everything very well pictorial. I also like the very nice writing style of the story. The novel is also very fluid to read. The story told in it is really well written and to the last page a good read.

I appreciate having had an opportunity to read and review this book. I very much enjoyed the first book in this series, but the appeal of this sequel was not evident to me; if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer simply to advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.