I really liked this book, but I felt that there were lulls in the story that needed some help.. However I found this to be really enjoyable and entertaining and would recommend.

What a wonderful, enjoyable, and fantastic story! I immediately fell in love with Daron and Faye. The story mixes our world with a world loosely based on Greek mythology. I really love the development of Faye and the inclusion of the world Ether where centaurs, griffins, sirens, and many other lives. Love this MG adventure.

(i received this e-arc from netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

a compelling middle grade fantasy with plenty of heart and courage.

I really enjoyed this book. I saw the blurb and thought it seemed like something I’d enjoy and I was right. The world is magical and the characters definitely brought the story to life. It’s a quick read that flies by. Faye and Daron are very likeable and I enjoyed all the mythology references throughout the book as well. This was a fascinating novel and I can’t wait to experience the next one!

3.5 stars, I really enjoyed this! I think my favorite part was the world-building. It was very seamless and Bailey did well creating a world without a lot of info-dumping. The story was cute and I liked all of the main characters. I liked it enough that I went and purchased the rest of the series on kindle, especially since they’re so inexpensive!

I would have rated this book higher if it weren’t for two things. First, I almost DNFed fairly early on because the character development was rather basic and the writing was fairly simplistic. Even at the end the characters felt rather two-dimensional and I checked if this was actually meant to be YA because it feels more Middle Grade to me. Second, nearly all of the women in this book, apart from Faye, are depicted as cold, unfriendly at best and villainous traitors at worst. Are there really so few decent women in the Ether? I checked who the author was, assuming that someone who wrote women in such a way had to be a man. Nevertheless, I liked the story enough that I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt and hoping that some of these flaws are rounded out as the series progresses.

Thank you NetGalley, author and publisher for the arc in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Magical book for kids and big kids alike! I really enjoyed getting into the story and I’m 30 so can you imagine how cool it would be for youngsters?!
I think this would be a great addition to any school library and an equally lovely bedtime story to read over a week or so at home with family.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

3.5 stars

Thank you so much for the chance to read this book ahead of its release!

I think it's no secret that me and many other readers absolutely adore anything that's inspired by (Greek) mythology, and this was a fun addition to the YA section!
The plot wasn't the most engaging or unique, but the world felt really palpable and vibrant, so it was still an engaging journey. Additionally, the characters were quite well-developed for the most part, and the relationships between them were really what made the book for me.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The characters really make this story magic. I loved this so much. It was an amazing read.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

I absolutely loved this MM romance.

Such a great book with a solid storyline and great characters.

I eagerly look forward to reading more from this author.

A definite recommend!

“Faye and the Ether” is a story about a young girl. Faye enters a world full of mythical creatures, dangerous threats, and magic. Faye learns of her lineage and her fate as a member of the Ether. She grows up quickly, understands the way of her talents, and must make decisions that can change the destiny of the world as we know it. You know, your typical Saturday night.

What I love most about this book is how perfectly it follows the hero’s journey. We get the smallest introduction to Faye before she meets Daron, and it is all we need. The readers enter this strange and bizarre world alongside Faye, and we get to read the experience through her eyes. I thought Faye and Daron were great characters that brought some levity to such a monumental task, preventing the destruction of Earth and the Ether.

One aspect that I wish didn’t happen so quickly was the trek to the top of the mountain. For such a hefty journey, Faye and the others seem to accomplish it reasonably quickly. I always enjoy the introductory parts of the hero’s journey where the hero learns to hone their skill. I got a small aspect of it, but by the end, I feel like Faye was cheated out of her real opportunity to learn the strength of her magic. Yes, she learns through practical use, but I always think that there’s something special when the reader experiences their growth. I think there was an attempt with the globe, but it ended up that there were ulterior motives behind the globe’s use.

I enjoyed it, and I think it is a great YA fantasy book. Faye is a tenacious and robust character, and Daron is a formidable mentor. I appreciate their relationship and how they communicate with each other. Perhaps a little more prior knowledge on Daron would have built up the romance a bit more and felt more satisfactory, but I love that it did not fall into the familiar trope.

I had really hoped to enjoy reading this book, sorry to say I didn't. I liked how the characters were developed and the storyline was certainly interesting and that's what egged me on to keep reading till the end. However, I didn't sense any of the magic or the grandeur of the fantastical world of Ether described in the book. The writing felt inconsistent and the flow of the story was sometimes fleeting or lacking. To cite an instance, I never felt the profundity of the imminent war that all Ether beings are preparing for. I had wanted more adventures and would have loved to read more about Faye's journey of self discovery as the chosen one.

The mythology and world-building is Rick-Riordan-esque and is pretty fun. The side characters didn't feel like side characters, fully fleshed out stories of their own. Very much enjoyed this book.

Rating: 2.5 Stars

I have very mixed feelings about this book, most of which are largely unpopular just by taking a look at its other reviews and general rating. As always, I like to start with the good then work my way to what made this a 2.5 stars read for me.

I think that the dual point of views worked well for this book. Daron is a sweet, lovable character, and I really appreciated his friendship with Faye. His dynamic with his team was quite nice to read, especially his moments with Alec which started subtle but developed as the story went. Another thing I enjoyed was that Faye was allowed to act the way a teenager would, instead of gaining sudden endless wisdom for being the Chosen one. She had her moments of doubt, weakness, and acting out which I really liked.

Faye exploring the Ether world and learning some of its history and workings made for a nice introduction into this world. Although I kind of wish that we had more time for her to develop a deeper connection to this world and to the people she met, because it felt (even at the end) as if we have seen next to nothing of this magical world the main character stepped into.

This brings me to the things I didn't like about this book.

Faye and the Ether is a book with a promising premises but some poor execution. To begin with, the writing at the start of the book seems choppy and inconsistent with the writing in later chapter. I would excuse this away as the author gaining their footing, except that even later on some chapters are long and flow well while others consist of multiple small blocks of paragraphs that jump from one event to the next with only a [symbol] to signify that we have already moved on from the previous scene. I found the effect of this rather jarring, and it took me out of the story multiple times. A lot of the scenes needed to be fleshed out more, to give the reader time to get into the setting and connect to the characters' dynamics more.

Another huge pet peeve I had with the writing is the author using food to describe skin color. There is a line where the character Scyla is described with "deep spice color of [her] skin". I won't even pretend I understood what that line means.. I googled "deep spice color" and ended up looking at paint swathes for a few minutes. As a brown woman, I promise you that using "light brown", "dark brown", and "black" etc would suffice when describing people of color. Please stop making me read food comparisons for skin color.

As for the story itself, I think (once again) that the premises was pretty good but it needed far more work and the details should have been hashed out more. I finished reading the book and still had no idea what caused the war in Ether to begin with, because the information was never provided. The worldbuilding was fine in some places (talking about the different creatures, touching lightly upon their magic and shapeshifting and societal expectations), but super shaky in others I.E why that war was brewing and what Typhon's motives were or why Heracles sided with him. Additionally, Hekista's involvement came out of left field for me, because the character wasn't given enough weight to begin with for her to come back as a plot twist, and her daughter had a total of two scenes that also didn't establish or describe how proud she is or provide any context that would justify her later actions. I honestly am puzzled by a world that is full of magic, shape-shifting, and Greek mythology having homophobia as a major plot point -I will admit that that's where the book really lost me.

Overall, Faye and the Ether is a book with an interesting storyline and interesting characters, however it could have really benefited from better world-building and a far more established backstory/plot.

Faye and the Ether by Nicole Bailey is a quick and enjoyable read for fans of young adult fantasy. I didn’t absolutely love this book, but I still really enjoyed it.
Now for a bit more detail:
Faye and the Ether is a fantasy novel with some elements of Greek mythology. The main character Faye is thrown into this new world and we as the reader start experiencing all the new things together with her. So far so good.
The story was mostly really enjoyable, albeit pretty straightforward. It still kept me interested and engaged for most of the time.
Most of the characters were likeable too, even though Faye initially came off a little annoying (think: ‘I’m not like the other girls’ girl). I personally love stories with a small group of characters going on missions and being badass together, and there was some of that too. But overall I felt like the characters were a little underdeveloped. I would have loved to see a little more about the characters, just so they feel a little more real.
Now there is one more point I want to talk about that rubbed me the wrong way a little bit:
There was a lot of prejudice against groups of people in this book, which in and of itself wouldn’t annoy me if the characters were then taught to not instantly believe them. But that wasn’t really the case, at least it didn’t seem like it to me. And I know that’s kind of a little thing to be annoyed about, but I couldn’t get it out of my head.
All in all, I would say this is a pretty solid, enjoyable read. It’s not an outstanding book, but there are quite some unique ideas, and while the story and the characters felt a little unfinished I’ll definitely be picking up the next book in the series once it comes out to see how the rest of the story unfolds.

I'll start this review by saying this is an amazing fantasy book. It caught my attention in a very unique way and I'm glad I requested it on NetGalley. But, of course, it's not flawless, as things rarely are, so I'll dig deeper into analyzing and rating this book, with more details.

The characters, despite not being flat, felt distant. That was something that, at least for me, often made sense, but it could be a fault depending on how the reader sees it. For Faye, one of the main characters, this sounds reasonable to me because she strikes me as someone who's slightly detached from things because it doesn't feel like home. When she arrives at Ether, this new world she gets to know and affairs of which she was now dragged to the center, it does feel like home, but she's still a bit out of place, as she doesn't really know the habits, culture, etc. of that place. Basically, it makes sense that for a while, she feels distant, since, to her, it doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere. So, yeah, reasonable.

Daron, the other protagonist, on the other hand, feels generally distant except for some moments of intense passion, and I truly think that was on purpose. He often shows restraint, trying not to make his feelings and intensity clear, available to the eye of whoever was interested in checking; that's obviously tiring, so we get to see some of his passion exploding when he can't help but do so. Personally, it felt like at the beginning, he was always keeping his thoughts and emotions tidy as if it was an office, his narrative being almost matter-of-factly. As the pages passed by, though, his thoughts had gradually become more and more unfiltered.

So, I really like how it struck me, whether it was on purpose or not because it's very interesting when the writing style changes as the character are developed. Despite that, I feel like this distance was occasionally used way too much, making it a bit hard to notice whether it was a device to make the reader understand the characters and the pacing better or if it was just laziness on Bailey's part. I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, considering that if in those parts, the writing style was slightly less distant, this resource would've been useful. The thing here, I think, is that a good writing device is to be used wisely, which usually differs from excess.

Something I appreciated was the fact that a gay couple was portrayed when it could've very easily been another story focused on heterosexual romance. But while it meant a lot to me, there are still a couple of things I'd like to take note of: the first one is that Faye's reaction to Daron being gay wasn't one I appreciated. He didn't want to confess his love to the man he had feelings for, because, in the context, he could've been killed, amongst other things, like fulfilling his duty as a leader, losing the respect of his peers. The other is the habit Bailey seems to have to call men and women 'male' and 'female', like 'the adult female' and 'male and male relationship'. These terms are commonly used as some sort of weapon against trans people and as a trans person myself, I couldn't help but be bothered by that usage.

Though it may not seem that I enjoyed the book (starting the review saying it's an amazing book was precisely because of that), I really did. But there were flaws and things I would've enjoyed more if they were out of the final work and I like to keep my reviews as sincere as possible.

I'm looking forward to the next volume, because there surely is one, not only because I checked, but also because the cliffhanger is making me turn my brain upside down!

I'm not 100% sure how to feel about this book. I didn't have super high hopes, it was just a book that looked cool so I read it, and it wasn't awful, but I didn't love it.
For one thing, it's pretty cliche. It's a lot of that same YA fantasy with a female protagonist who was adopted as a kid, doesn't know her birth parents, and then some boy comes along and tells her she belongs to this fantasy realm and is also a chosen one. Granted, all this considered, at least it had a good number of characters of color (although one is described as having "deep-spice" skin, so I don't feel great about that), and at least the main romance wasn't between Faye and Daron, but rather an mlm romance between Daron and a side character.
The world building isn't bad, it's kind of cool, and while the pacing is a little bit weird at times, for the most part it doesn't drag, which I hate in books. The plot did feel kind of rushed at times, and was a little confusing, and the romance was definitely abrupt with little to no build-up.
I didn't like how this book treats its female characters. Aside from Faye, her adopted and birth mothers, and a minor side character, they're all bad people, especially the centaurs. The narrators always describe them as "females," and their only motivation and purpose is to mate with the men, and are rude, irritating, and kind of predatory towards to the male centaurs. I hope one day YA fantasy authors can move beyond this and actually write well developed, good female characters.
Overall, I didn't love it, it kind of put me in a reading slump, but it was fine I guess.

Welcome to a land where mythology comes to life and most of the stories you were told are not entirely true.
Faye is a teenage girl who dreams of endless days swimming in the ocean and college applications. She grew up listening to the her mom tell her the stories of Zeus, the selkies, and the centaurs. One day, a new kid arrives at school, who through good intentions, will turn Faye's world upside down.

Initially, I had conflicting thoughts about this one. It was giving me Twilight-vibes: awkward solitary teen girl, powerful protective guy who is much older than he looks, mythical creatures, a party on the beach. Then later on in the story, once we were in the Ether, I was getting serious Percy Jackson-vibes: mainly the mention of the Greek mythology and training/quest aspect. This is not a fault of this particular story or of this author, but more of a reflection of the prevalence of the previously mentioned books -- they are such massive hits that they've become a part of our culture, and it is hard to not make comparisons. Ultimately, Fay and the Ether is its own wonderful story. When I finished the last sentence, I immediately wanted to pick up the next book in the series.

For some reason, I had extremely high expectations from this book (maybe because of the cover design, which is beautiful) and I was left a little disappointed. The story is not at all engaging and very straightforward. Even the plot twists aren't exciting at all. The characters are not well developed, and neither is the story. What I'm trying to say is that the book lacked any form of depth. I did not hate it and it was an okay-ish book, but not very good.

Absolutely loved this book! The way mythology was used, amazing! I can’t wait for part two in the series and see what Faye is up to next